On February 8, 2024, the Püspökladany District Court announced a verdict in the criminal case of the defendant who bit a police officer who was acting against him.
The district court found the defendant guilty of the crime of violence against an official, the crime of bodily harm and the offense of driving while intoxicated. Therefore, the court sentenced the defendant, who was also permanently banned from driving, to 3 years and 6 months in prison as a cumulative punishment and to a 3-year ban from public affairs.
According to the essence of the verdict, on September 26, 2022, at around 1 p.m., the police appeared at a bank building in Hajdú-Bihar County to take action based on a public report of drunk driving. After listening to the whistleblower, the patrol officers secretly observed the car marked in the report, which was parked on the service road in front of the financial institution, and then they saw a man get into the vehicle and drive away.
The driver noticed the service car, so he evaded the police and drove on. The police tried to stop the man, who fled for approximately one kilometer, using a distinctive light and sound signal.
The defendant stopped in front of his residence, ran into the property and locked himself in the living room. The police tried to push in the door with physical force, which the man only let go under the influence of his mother, and then suddenly ran to the refrigerator in the kitchen, from which he took out a can of beer to drink. The police repeatedly called on the defendant to submit to the measure, and in the end physical coercion had to be used against the man.
The defendant continuously resisted, clenched his arms into fists and pulled them under his chest, and then bit the finger of one of the police officers, causing an injury with an open wound that took more than 8 days to heal.
When imposing the sentence, the court evaluated as mitigating circumstances the defendant’s partial confession of guilt, the fact that he regretted committing the act, and that he is obliged to take care of a minor child. At the same time, he took into account as aggravating circumstances the fact that the accused had a criminal record and had previously been convicted partly for the same acts, as well as the fact that he committed his acts in a state of severe intoxication and under the terms of a suspended prison sentence.
The verdict is not final, the prosecution filed an appeal for aggravation, while the defendant and his lawyer filed an appeal for mitigation. The case continues at the Debrecen Court.
(Debrecen Court)
