Wolverhampton knifeman threatened to kill paramedics over escaped dog
A drunk knifeman threatened to kill paramedics – leaving one trainee so scared she locked herself in the back of an ambulance.
Bradley Gourley, from Wolverhampton, armed himself with a large kitchen knife after the crew were called to his home late at night on a 111 call, a court heard.
He was drunk and agitated when the paramedics arrived and became even more violent when his mother tried to calm him down.
Gourley, aged 24, of Wood End Road, Wednesfield, went into the street armed with the knife after a dog that he was looking after ran away and he blamed the ambulance crew for letting it escape.
He brandished the knife in the face of one paramedic and told him he would kill him unless he found the animal.
Aggressive
Judge David Evans told him: “When the dog got out your reaction was irrational, bizarre and excessive. You picked up a kitchen knife and went right in the face of the paramedic.
“You held the knife at his head so close and so aggressively that a student who was with the crew was so fearful she got into the ambulance and locked the doors.
“You have come within a hair’s breadth of imprisonment.”
Miss Kelly Scrivener, defending, said Gourley was staying at a friend’s house in Briseham Road, Brixham, and looking after his dog when the ambulance was called at 1am on July 15 last year.
The crew found he was drunk and upset but he became violent after his mother attended and the crew withdrew to the street to leave them together.
Gourley became angry when the animal escaped and threatened the crew with the knife, which he put back in the kitchen before police arrived.
Mr Barry White, defending, said Gourley suffers from serious physical and mental after-effects of abuse in childhood.
He said the events of the night were hugely stressful and were ‘a perfect storm for him’.
Gourley admitted making threats with a knife and was jailed for eight months, suspended for 18 months.
He was also given a 28-day curfew, ordered to undergo alcohol treatment and do 30 days rehabilitation activities by Judge Evans at Exeter Crown Court.
