Notorious Harrogate thug jailed for affray and biting police officer

Adam Snowdon, 31, was arrested following a drunken incident in Parliament Street and was hauled into Harrogate Police Station, where he bit one officer and allegedly assaulted two others.

He was charged with affray and assaulting three police officers.

He initially denied all allegations but admitted affray on the day of trial.

Snowdon, of Lupton Close, Glasshouses, was tried by a jury on three allegations of assaulting a police officer.

Yesterday (September 12), he was found guilty of one count of assaulting a policeman but not guilty of attacking the two others.

The substantive charge on which he was found guilty was biting a named officer at the police station on Beckwith Head Road on May 1.

Prosecutor Ben Whittingham said that Snowdon was on a community order at the time for previous offences, including violence against police officers.

Defence barrister Allan Armbrister said Snowdon was “very much a loner” who desperately needed help after years of mental-health issues.

He said Snowdon had not yet received that professional help and would now “lose that chance” due to the inevitable jail sentence for his “awful behaviour” in the town centre in May.

He added that Snowdon had recently become a father but any hopes of family life were now “completely lost” because his now-ex partner didn’t want “anything more to do with him”.

Snowdon, who was no stranger to prison, had been diagnosed with behavioural problems as a child.

Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, said he had “taken a chance” with Snowdon when he gave him a community order earlier this year, but jail was now the only option because of his “bad” record for violence.

He said although Snowdon didn’t start the violence in the town centre, it was a “prolonged incident thereafter, on a busy street where people are fed up with drunken violence”.

Jailing Snowdon for 19 months, the judge said he would reserve all future cases involving the Harrogate man to himself and would “come down on you like a tonne of bricks if you cause trouble in North Yorkshire’s towns and cities”.

Snowdon will serve half of that sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.