Government solicitor: ‘£500 fine for attack on Spalding police officer is in order’

The government’s solicitor general says the £500 fine given to a Spalding man who  knocked a police officer to the ground and repeatedly punched him was in line with sentencing guidelines.

Pc Karl Cinavas was jumped on and assaulted by Jonathan Fox (51), who was drunk and had been verbally abusing a female South Holland District Council officer helping at an election count last May. District councillors Gary Taylor and Jack McLean dived in to get Fox, of Stonegate, off the police officer.

In a front page report of the court case (pictured), The Voice asked whether the court sentence was just.

South Holland and The Deepings MP John Hayes picked up on that and wrote to fellow MP and solicitor general Robert Buckland asking why Fox was not jailed.

Mr Buckland replied that Fox had not been charged with an offence carrying an automatic custodial sentence.
He said: “Unfortunately, we have no power to refer sentences passed by the magistrates’ court.
“The guidelines show that the sentence range for this offence goes from a fine (quantified by reference to the offender’s weekly income) up to a maximum of 26 weeks’ imprisonment.”

He added that only those offences where the culpability and harm caused are high –for example, where there has been a sustained assault, a racial or religious motivation, use of a weapon or the offender played a leading role in a gang – carry a jail term.
“Such factors do not appear to have been present in Mr Fox’s case,” he said.

Mr Hayes remains appalled at the outcome of the case and is due to discuss it with new Lincolnshire Police chief constable Bill Skelly.