An “out of control” yob who repeatedly threatened to “rip out the throats” of police officers before assaulting them with a corrosive powder cried as he was jailed.
Charlie Rider was so agitated and aggressive during a confrontation at his Maidstone home that he continued to struggle even after incapacitant Pava spray had been deployed.
It was as attempts were being made to restrain the 26-year-old that the “highly alkaline” contents of a small bottle – later found to be drain unblocker – were dispersed.
One officer later described feeling “excruciating pain” and suffering blisters to his arm.
At the time of the disturbance in March this year, Rider was on bail for a violent street mugging in which the victim, having been lured by a woman’s fake cries for help, was chased, beaten and kicked.
He was also subject to a 12-month conditional discharge for shoplifting.
But at his sentencing hearing on Thursday (October 3) for what a judge described as an “extraordinary” period in his life, Rider could be seen shaking in the dock, and then weeping as he was led to the cells.
Maidstone Crown Court heard that four officers went to Rider’s flat at Lily Smith House in Knightrider Street on March 17 this year following reports that he was smashing up the property.
Having arrived at around 5.20pm, they found him in an agitated state and were greeted with “immediate aggression” and threats, said prosecutor Eleanor Scott-Davies.
Attempts to calm him down failed and as the constables followed him into his flat, they saw a cupboard had been smashed up.
Ms Scott-Davies said Rider continued to be aggressive while threatening: “You don’t know what I’m about. Don’t push me because I will f****** hit you.”
The court heard there was no let up in his abusive tirade as he snarled: “F*** off before I end up turning, because if I turn I’ll rip all your throats out.
“I will turn your throats into f****** mush….I don’t care if you are male or female. I don’t give a f***. I will tear your throats out with my hands.”
Having warned he would “stab a c***” if they did not retreat and give him time to calm down, Rider added: “I don’t make threats, I make promises. I don’t punch people, I stab them.
“If you leave, it’s fine. You come, you die.”
It was at this point that Rider’s aggression “peaked”, said the prosecutor as he warned “Let’s f****** fight”.
He then reached for a small, mouthwash-size bottle on the kitchen table and began to loosen the lid.
“He said ‘I’ll tell you something. If you come near me I’ll throw this crystal in your face,’,” Ms Scott-Davies told the court.
“He made it clear he was going to use the substance on the officers. He started to shake the bottle and a white, granular substance came out.”
The officers had to resort to using Pava spray to handcuff Rider and during the struggle that ensued, the corrosive substance landed on two of the officers.
Rider continued to put up a fight by stiffening his legs and so had to be forcibly carried from the property.
One injured officer suffered reddening of the skin on his arm with small pin prick marks that later blistered.
Rider, now living in the Bournemouth area of Dorset, admitted four offences of threatening a person with a corrosive substance in a private place, two offences of assaulting an emergency worker, criminal damage and breach of a conditional discharge.
The court heard that a month before the incident he had pleaded guilty to his involvement in a robbery committed in Old Tovil Road, Maidstone, on January 2 this year.
The victim was walking home at about 3am when he heard a woman shouting for help. But as he went to assist, Rider and another man came up from behind.
The man fled but was pursued and eventually attacked, left with a broken nose and bruised eye, and his wallet, phone and £250 stolen.
Kerry Waitt, defending at the sentencing hearing, said his client was “under no illusion” as to the consequences he faced for what was “a volatile and dangerous” encounter with police.
But she told the court that the offending was neither “premeditated nor thought-through”, and occurred when his life was “out of control”.
“That weekend he had threatened to take his own life and had made an attempt to do so by taking all his medication,” said the lawyer.
“He was in a dreadful state and beyond caring what happened to himself.”
The robbery, the court was told, was an “endeavour” with his two accomplices to fund drug-taking.
Before passing sentence, Judge Julian Smith remarked that the charges reflected “a sense of humanity” as he could have faced the more serious offence of throwing a corrosive substance.
But on jailing Rider for a total of three years and three months, he told him that although the leaking of the substance was reckless, his behaviour that evening had been “focused and persistent”.
“When they were seeking to cuff you, you were increasingly aggressive and violent. You refused to calm down,” the judge said.
“Had you deliberately set out to put that substance on people, on those officers, you would have faced more serious charges.
“In the struggle that took place, it leaked as a result of you shaking it, causing minor injuries. It is nothing more than pure fortune that they were not more serious than they were.”
Judge Smith said the robbery, for which his two co-defendants were jailed at a previous hearing, was “planned and organised”, with Rider playing the role of one of two “heavies or enforcers”.
