Suspect asks PC - "Are you a good runner?"

Monday 05 March 2018

Jersey’s Magistrate’s Court has been told how a 23-year-old Jerseyman who was stopped late at night in St. Helier for an alleged drugs offence asked the officer detaining him "are you a good runner?" before making a dash for freedom.

PC Fitzgerald was on patrol in Hilgrove Street just after 23:30 on 20 January when he spotted a couple in a doorway, and noticed the man apparently "sniffing something from the end of the woman’s finger."

The officer detained them both and called for back-up. Whilst he was waiting, Callum Leith joked with the officer, asking: "Are you a good runner?" The Court was told this made the officer worried Leith might try and escape, so he kept a close eye on him. But his attention was momentarily distracted when one of the girl’s friends, who was also in the area, asked if he had a search warrant. When he turned round, Leith ran off.

Leith’s advocate told the Court his client couldn’t explain why he ran off other than it was just "a moment of drunken stupidity." He’d been out celebrating with friends in St. Aubin earlier in the afternoon, and had then carried on drinking back in town.

Police later tracked down Leith’s identity using footage from PC Fitzgerald’s bodycam, and arrested him the following morning at an address in St. John. He denied taking drugs, and none were ever found on the woman he’d been with when she was taken to Police headquarters.

Sentencing, Magistrate David Le Cornu told Leith: “You overreacted – probably fuelled by drink - because no drugs were found.” He gave him a £250 fine for intentionally obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty.