Policewoman begged axe attacker to stop, court told

A woman police officer who was left with one finger hanging off and a wound to her head after she was attacked by a man with an axe has described how she pleaded with him to stop.

Pc Lisa Bates said Nathan Sumner repeatedly hit her with the tool after she and a colleague were called to a disturbance at his home on Plowright Close, in the Gleadless area of Sheffield.

The South Yorkshire Police officer told Sheffield Crown Court she broke her leg when she jumped down a flight of stairs in an attempt to escape from Sumner as he chased her with an axe.

Sam Green QC, prosecuting, told the jury that Pc Bates and Pc Mark Garrett were on duty in a marked police vehicle when they were called to the maisonette on the evening of April 13.

Giving evidence from behind a screen, Pc Bates told the court that Sumner shouted "aggressively" as he answered the door and attacked her colleague, punching him and pinning him against a wall.

She said she tried to pull him away but he was too strong so she used an incapacitating gas spray, which had no effect on the defendant but affected Pc Garrett's vision.

Pc Bates told the jury of six men and six women that Sumner reappeared with the axe shouting "Come on then, you f*****s".

She said: "I turned round and ran and shouted 'run' to (Pc Garrett).

"I could feel him and hear him closing in on me. He just kept shouting 'come on'.

"I was panicking so I started jumping down a couple of steps at a time. I think the last one I jumped the whole flight of stairs. I broke my leg. My left leg just snapped."

The officer added: "He was hitting me from behind. I felt it was heavy and cold and I turned around with my hands up and he just kept hitting me with the axe."

She continued: "I asked him to stop. I begged him to stop. When I was getting tired and couldn't defend myself any more, I just said 'please stop, I'm begging you'."