Woman stabbed police officer’s neck (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Court detains defendant in hospital over violent offences

11:00am Saturday 26th May 2012 in News By Tanya O'Rourke

A woman has been detained indefinitely in hospital after admitting a series of offences including stabbing a police officer in Bradford city centre.

Rachel Ward-Heap, 20, admitted a common assault on a security guard and assault causing actual bodily harm to a police officer on September 16 last year.

She also admitted wounding an officer and having a knife blade in Westgate, Bradford, in October last year.

Prosecutor David McGonigal told Bradford Crown Court yesterday that on October 28 Ward-Heap threatened to cut the throat of a man who walked past her as she sat on a grassed verge in Westgate, showing him what appeared to be a Stanley knife blade. He called the police who arrived and saw her shouting for vehicles to run her over in the middle of the road.

Mr McGonigal said she stabbed a police officer to the side of his neck causing a cut which was 3cm long and 0.5cm deep, before trying to cut her own neck and eventually being restrained and arrested.

She was also being sentenced for the events of September 16 last year. Ward-Heap, of Crosley Wood Road, Bingley, had been with a friend at Bingley train station who, in drink, had crossed over the railway line to get to another platform. The defendant involved herself in an argument with a security guard over the incident which led to her biting him on the arm, Mr McGonigal told the court.

Later that evening a police officer who was arresting her was also bitten on the arm, suffering some injuries, the court heard.

The hearing was told Ward-Heap was suffering from a mental disorder and heard from Dr Andrew Wilson, who had carried out an assessment on her.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said it was necessary for her to be detained in hospital without limit of time for the protection of the public, taking into account “the frightening circumstances of the offence, your past, and the risk for others in the future if you were outside the hospital”.

He told her: “This is all meant to help.”