A MAN has been jailed for five months for deliberately ramming his wheelchair into a police officer at Airedale Hospital.

Mohammed Bilal Khaliq would be released from custody almost immediately as “time served” after being locked up on remand for failing to turn up in court for an earlier hearing.

Khaliq, 25, of Broomfield Road, Keighley, denied assaulting the police constable as an emergency worker but changed his plea to guilty today ahead of his trial next month.

Prosecutor Oliver Connor told Bradford Crown Court that the police were called to a disturbance in the street in Keighley on May 31.

Khaliq was verbally abusive to members of the public and the police and handcuffed and put in a police van.

Mr Connor said he was taken to Airedale Hospital, in Steeton, because he had sustained a head injury.

He was waiting at the hospital in a wheelchair when he deliberately rammed it backwards into the officer, trapping her hand and causing pain and minor bruising.

Khaliq’s barrister, Seamran Sidhu, said he was lightly convicted for a single drugs offence in 2015.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Richard Mansell QC, said Khaliq was clearly intoxicated on something but he wasn’t sentencing him for what had happened in the street.

While he was waiting at the hospital with the police, he had deliberately rammed his wheelchair into the officer, trapping her hand.

Judge Mansell said that Khaliq had been remanded into custody for four months after breaching his bail by failing to turn up at court in August.

Jailing him for five months, he said he had already served the sentence and would be released on licence from HMP Durham almost immediately.

  • Figures released in August revealed that police officers in West Yorkshire had been attacked more than 2,000 times during the coronavirus pandemic.

Home Office data shows 2,160 attacks on West Yorkshire police officers were recorded between April 2020 and March 2021 - a slight fall from 2,164 the previous year.

The Police Federation for England and Wales had stated that police have faced a "disgusting level of violence" while working to keep the public safe throughout the pandemic.

The Federation said violence against officers was "unjustified" and should be dealt with robustly, while the Home Office has previously pointed out that anyone who commits assaults on police should "face the full force of the law."