By Staff Reporter

Last updated at 13:16, Wednesday, 26 September 2012

A Carlisle mother-of-four has admitted attacking a policeman who came to her house in Carlisle looking for her partner.

PC Timothy Prangnell went to 29-year-old Melissa Jane Kelton’s home in Moorside Drive on the Garlands estate to talk to her boyfriend in connection with trouble on Botchergate in March.

When he got there nobody answered the door, although it had been left open.

So the officer went inside – where Kelton launched herself at him, punching him several times and kicking him twice.

“There was a general melee and PC Prangnell was slightly injured,” prosecuting counsel Julian Taylor told the city’s crown court yesterday.

PC Prangnell suffered bruises and minor internal muscle injuries, but was not badly hurt.

Mr Taylor said the offence would have been more serious if Kelton had been wearing shoes at the time, but the prosecution could not disprove her insistence that she had not been.

Kelton, who had never been in trouble before, pleaded guilty to causing PC Prangnell actual bodily harm after the judge, Recorder John Jones QC, told her she would not go to prison if she admitted what she had done.

He said that although such an assault on a police officer was serious and merited a custodial sentence, in her case such a sentence would be suspended.

Kelton was remanded on bail for background reports and will be sentenced on November 5.

First published at 11:30, Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk