A POLICE officer came ‘within a whisker’ of being permanently disabled when he was kicked down stairs while he and a colleague were dealing with a domestic incident.

The two officers had gone to the home of dad-of-three Thomas Kitteringham after being alerted by a neighbour, but when they tried to arrest his partner the well-built and strong 35-year-old intervened.

Prosecutor Adam Walker told Bradford Crown Court today that the officers had already called for back-up to the volatile situation when Kitteringham turned to face one of the police constables at the top of the staircase and kicked him with full force in the chest.

The officer fell headfirst down the stairs and ‘felt his neck crack’ before realising he couldn’t feel the lower part of his body.

“Naturally thoughts went through his mind that he had suffered a serious and permanent spinal injury,” Mr Walker said.

His colleague was then involved in a terrifying confrontation with drunken Kitteringham before he was eventually able to subdue him using PAVA spray.

The officer kicked downstairs then started to regain sensation in his legs and a CT scan in hospital revealed no serious injury. But he had knee injuries and a cracked rib and he described the violence as beyond anything he had suffered in the past.

Kitteringham, of Woodbrook Close, Mixenden, Halifax, originally faced a charge of attempting to inflict grievous bodily harm, but his guilty plea to assault occasioning actual bodily harm was accepted by the prosecution. He also admitted assaulting an emergen-cy worker in relation to the second police officer.

Kitteringham, a joiner who is the sole carer for three young children, apologised for his behaviour, his barrister Ken Green said. He was genuinely remorseful for the offending on November 6 last year.

Mr Green conceded that he thoroughly deserved to go to prison but urged Deputy Cir-cuit Judge Timothy Clayson to take account of the impact it would have on his children.

Judge Clayson said the officer must have come within millimetres of suffering a really serious neck injury when he was kicked down the stairs.

“You came within a whisker of leaving him permanently disabled,” he said.

Kitteringham was sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, and ordered to comply with a 120-day alcohol abstinence and monitoring programme.

He must also attend up to 40 rehabilitation activity requirement days.