THE family of a man who attacked South Hams police officers with power tools have criticised ‘tasteless jokes’ made at an awards ceremony recognising the officers’ bravery.
Sgt John Dingle, PC Ryan Hayhurst, PC Jonathan Lonsdale and PC Rebecca Sutton-Scott-Tucker received bravery awards at a Police Federation ceremony held at the Dorchester Hotel, London.
The awards follow an attack on officers by Stephen Yabsley at his Retreat Close flat in Kingsbridge in May last year. Yabsley is being held in Broadmoor secure psychiatric hospital, pending sentencing, after admitting injuring two officers.
A link to a video of the awards evening was posted on the Kingsbridge Police Facebook page last Friday, along with the comment: ‘Four officers this week received awards after being attacked in Kingsbridge last year by a man with power tools.’
The post added: ‘They had DIY SOS presenter Nick Knowles on their table. Wonder if that was meant to happen? Despite what anyone says. Despite the media bias against us. Despite the constant negativity. This is your police. These people put themselves in harms way for you every day.’
Stephen Yabsley’s daughter Ella Yabsley responded: ‘Rather than making a tasteless joke about a mentally unwell person and glorifying the (awful) situation with a joke about power tools, DIY SOS and Nick Knowles, perhaps the Kingsbridge police force can post some genuinely constructive information regarding this case.’
She added: ‘People with mental health problems are more likely to be victims of crime than others and up to 90 per cent of prisoners and two fifths of those on community sentences have mental health problems.’
And Lorna Yabsley, Stephen’s sister, posted: ‘I have just watched this again and am pretty livid.
‘A very one-sided report. No mention of mental illness. Still insinuating that he laid a trap, he had been taunted and bullied by some of his less than nice neighbours and was terrified and manic.
‘I don’t for one minute doubt the police bravery, but surely the question must be asked, why aggravate a man who clearly needs psychiatric help. He had agreed to one police officer entering his home, he only attacked when two entered.
‘This man is a good man, he is ill and at no point in any of the police publicity has this been mentioned.
‘Please can we have clarity from the police in the interests of justice. And joking about him as if he is some low-life is disgraceful.’
Announcing the award at the ceremony, compere TV presenter Mark Durden-Smith said the officers were part of a team who tackled a man armed with power tools and heroically rescued their injured colleagues.
In a video shown at the awards evening, PC Hayhurst began describing what happened on the evening of the attack.
He said: ‘We got a call to an address we knew, to an individual that we knew who was having problems with his neighbours.
‘This particular incident he had threatened a neighbour with a hammer. So we were dispatched and when we got there we spoke to the reportant person and he told us the guy in question was still in his flat. He’d returned to his flat and we obviously had to go in and speak to him and attempt to arrest him.’
PC Lonsdale added: ‘I knocked on his door and there was no reply. After a while, he came to the door and was quite reasonable. We explained why we were there. We needed to have words with him and he was going to be arrested for the incident with the hammer.’
PC Hayhurst said: ‘And he said come in and we’ll talk about it and he held the door open and I waited for Jon to come up behind me and then I stepped through the threshold.’
PC Lonsdale said: ‘I managed to get my left foot into the door to prevent it being slammed shut and prevent my colleague from being in the address alone.’
PC Hayhurst said: ‘I grabbed hold of his [Yabsley’s] shoulders to try and pull him off the door and the minute I touched him, he just dropped down to the floor.
‘I looked down and saw an angle grinder on the floor and thought I can’t have that coming towards me.
‘So I went down to meet him and he just looked up at me and swung the angle grinder up towards my face and neck.
‘I managed to just get my arm up and he just glanced across my arm, cutting all my ligaments and tendons.
‘He was holding the angle grinder in front of him – I can only describe as like a light sabre. He was waving it around and I thought the only thing that I can do is punch him a couple of times.
‘I managed to strike him on both sides of the head. What I didn’t realise was that he, in that case, had cut my other arm and my face and chin. Jon’s arm was half in the door. He put his foot in and he [Yabsley] actually sliced Jon’s arm as well.’
PC Lonsdale said: ‘I saw a blue flash coming straight towards my face. I hadn’t got a clue what it was and in an instance, and in self-defence, I put my left arm up above my face to protect myself.
‘I felt what was like a hammer blow to the top of my arm, causing instant pain.
‘I have got no idea what it was. From then on, my memory’s quite blurred at this stage.’
PC Hayhurst said: ‘Now he [Yabsley] had what I thought at the time was a sander – a flat-fronted sander. It actually turned out to be a circular saw with the guard held back. Both of these machines [the saw and angle grinder] were on extension leads, they covered the whole house.
‘He’d set the whole house up so he could get us at any point.
‘My instant reaction was I was going to be killed by Bob the Builder – and that’s not a good way to go.
‘I just remember seeing the angle grinder come down in a long arc and I squeezed myself against the wall to avoid it – and it hit me in the body armour.’
Sgt Dingle said: ‘When we arrived at the location, there was our colleague, Jon, who was on the floor outside the flat with a serious bleed to his arm – an arterial bleed. So I asked: “Where’s Ryan? Where’s Ryan?”
‘I was told he was still in the flat. So I made my way to the flat, calling for Ryan.
‘I had my taser drawn and he [PC Hayhurst] came running out of a side room with a male chasing him. I didn’t have a clear shot with the taser and, because of the confines of where we were, it wasn’t safe to deploy that, so I grabbed Ryan and dragged him out of the building, shutting the door behind us.
‘We then made our way out of the flats but then I realised Jon was still in the communal area of the flats, being attended to by our colleague PC Sutton.’
PC Sutton said: ‘There was blood everywhere and it was just coming out at a rate of knots. I knew I didn’t have the strength to be able to pick Jon up, so I then said to Jon I’m shoving you under the stairs because there was a gap underneath the stairwell.
‘I am also then saying to him: “Jon, shush” and I could hear these tools – the noise going.’
Sgt Dingle said: ‘I went back in and grabbed Jon, pulled him out of the flats and away from the building, just to get some distance between us and the male while we assessed the situation.’
PC Hayhurst said: ‘And I saw Jon, and I was very, very concerned about whether he was going to make it or not. He looked absolutely awful. He doesn’t look good at the best of times but that particular time he looked awful. It was like something out of a horror film. It will stay with my forever.’
Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer said: ‘They responded on that day to the best values of British policing – the sense of legitimacy; policing by consent; responding to someone they knew or knew was in crisis to try to keep them and the community safe.
‘And, having responded, to be sustained to the vicious attacks that they were, they were still mindful of the perpetrator and their needs but, as it became more of an attack on them, that sense of family and camaraderie came together in extreme acts of courage and bravery.
‘Quite literally, to lay one’s life on the line for the public and one’s colleagues is what makes British policing the best in the world.’
After inviting the four to join him on stage, Mark Durden-Smith said: ‘That seemed like a morbid version of DIY SOS. How lucky do you feel to be alive today and how grateful to the team that got you through that?’
PC Hayhurst said: ‘It was surreal going to a job like that. You don’t know what to expect. For that to happen that day – all those power tools and with my colleagues and everything.’
Addressing PC Sutton, Mr Durden-Smith said: ‘You decided to shove Jon under the staircase, like Harry Potter, which I thought was a bit mean, but from your point of view, as part of a team, how essential was it to get him through that ordeal?’
PC Sutton said: ‘I thought, as a team, it was massively important. We all know and trust each other 100 per cent and I knew the guys would came back in to assist me with Jon in getting him out – I knew that.’
Mr Durden-Smith said: ‘Ryan, you said that you didn’t think death by Bob the Builder was a good way to go. Personally, I think Pingu would be worse but, from your point of view, having to relive that, how difficult was it?’ PC Hayhurst said: ‘It was extremely difficult – and then you stuff Nick Knowles on the table just to wind us up.’
Addressing Sgt Dingle, Mr Durden-Smith said: ‘It was four hours this ordeal. All the way through this the assailant was on social networks. This thing was being broadcast, to who? How did you know he was doing that?’
Sgt Dingle replied: ‘It wasn’t until the guys had gone off to hospital.
‘I remained at the scene until he [Yabsley] was arrested and neighbours and people from the community came out and said he was broadcasting this all on social media – on Facebook.
‘He’d set this up as a trap. He wanted the attention. He’d set it up and it was all going out live – the attack and his thoughts at the time.’
Mr Durden-Smith said: ‘Extraordinary. Did you happen to notice him having any celebrity followers, like Cheryl Fernandez Versini, or anything like that?’
Sgt Dingle replied: ‘No, not at the time.’
Mr Durden-Smith said: ‘No, I can imagine you didn’t. That was a really stupid question. The top stupid question of the night.
‘We all listened to that in absolute awe that you got through it. You are deserving winners of our bravery award this evening. Congratulations.’
A Police Federation news release quotes DIY?SOS?presenter Nick Knowles. He said: ‘Their story is extraordinary – and it’s a bit of a poke in the eye for them, they get attacked by a maniac with power tools and then they get Nick Knowles from DIY SOS on their table, as if they hadn’t been through enough DIY-related things!’
Nick added: ‘We were having a bit of a laugh about that but it’s gallows humour really because when you think about what they went through, they were totally set up, they were set a trap and it was their professionalism and strength as a team which meant they managed to get themselves all out of there without one of them losing their lives.
‘It’s truly awe-inspiring to be here this evening and especially to be sat on a table with the Devon and Cornwall crew who are just amazing – and I will definitely be popping down for a cup of tea, although I think I’m buying.’
Responding to a request from this newspaper for a comment about the post on the Kingsbridge Police Facebook page and the posts from Lorna and Ella Yabsley, Insp Andy Tomlinson, who is in charge of policing in the South Hams, said: ‘I am enormously proud of the actions of all the officers who attended this incident.
‘I am sorry that in recognising the courage of these officers a comment has been made that has inadvertently caused offence. I have asked for that comment to be removed.
‘I do not wish to make any comment in relation to the wider points raised, as this case still awaits sentencing and it would be inappropriate for me to do so.’