A mother whose former soldier son was diagnosed with post traumatic stress has begun a courtroom battle to prove he was wrongly convicted of being drunk and disorderly and obstructing a police officer.

At Carlisle Crown Court, Evelyn Bitcon is personally conducting her son Stephen Cook’s appeal, two years after his conviction following an incident outside a Cockermouth pub.

She said Cook, 46, of Shaw Wood Road, Thursby, near Carlisle, was vulnerable because he has both chronic post traumatic stress and learning difficulties.

She suggested police “maliciously” targeted her son.

Raymond Smith, prosecuting, said that at 1am on February 16, 2014, police became aware Mr Cook was in the Fletcher Christian pub in Cockermouth, despite him being banned under the local Pubwatch scheme.

Cook was recognised by a member of staff and asked to leave, which he did, said Mr Smith.

Outside the pub, he encountered Sergeant Stephen Brown, who spoke to him about the ban. “Mr Cook was swaying from side to side, his eyes were glazed and he was staggering and slurring his speech,” said the prosecutor.

A short time later, in a nearby alleyway, police again asked Cook to go home but he became “increasingly aggressive,” said Mr Smith.

After being issued with a written direction to leave, he again refused and resisted as the officers tried to handcuff him, the court heard.

In evidence, Sergeant Brown said: “He was argumentative and aggressive.” He gave Cook every opportunity to go home, he said.

The officer said he did not want to lock up Cook, as doing so would have left him short of staff on a busy night shift. The court was then shown a video of five police officers in the alleyway - initially talking to Cook and then wrestling him to the ground.

Mrs Bitcon, who said her son suffered a burst lip, asked the officer: “Did you use excessive force?” The officer replied: “No.

"Officers tried to get him to be compliant, but he resisted to the point where we thought it wasn't possible [to make him comply]."

Questioned further by Mrs Bitcon about what happened, the officer said: “He just wasn't having it.

“He was swearing and refusing to go.

"He was aggressive and argumentative. PC Murdoch told him he was under arrest for being drunk and disorderly, but nobody wanted to arrest him. We just wanted him to go home. It was a busy night. But Mr Cook resisted, and we all ended up on the ground.”

Mrs Bitcon said her son had suffered a burst lip in the incident.

She told the court that her son had been drinking but was not drunk. If he felt under threat, she said, it was highly likely that he would have used bad language.

She said her son, who believed his ban under Pubwatch had expired, had felt he was being wrongly arrested.

Sergeant Brown said he was aware that Mr Cook was a veteran who had been diagnosed with post traumatic stress but he again said that on the night he and his colleagues tried everything they could to get him to go home peacefully.

Earlier in the hearing, Mrs Bitcon had suggested that her son's arrest was "maliciously" engineered to give police to have a go at her son. "It comes down to disability discrimination," she said.

The case is expected to last five days.