Drunk arrested outside pub, spat at police and tried to bite them during racist rant

A man racially abused police officers and tried to bite them during a night out drinking in Leicester city centre. Shaun Hirell, 39, appeared at Leicester Magistrates’ Court on Thursday to be sentenced on charges arising from three separate drink-driving incidents.

In the first, he was outside a pub in Charles Street when he tried to bite Leicestershire Police officers who were detaining him and spat at two officers, hitting one in the face. The court was told that when they put him in the back of a police van, he threatened an officer and made racist comments to him, telling him: ‘I’m going to kill your wife. I’m going to **** your mother and get you up.”

He was charged with two counts of assault on emergency workers, assaulting an emergency worker and two counts of racially aggravated threats, but failed to appear in court for a hearing following the incident in July 2022 and was found guilty in his absence. The sentence was postponed.

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Hirell was later arrested on Sunday 13 August 2023 during a 4.30am disturbance on Granby Street when he shouted racial abuse at members of the public while being arrested. In relation to that incident, he admitted racially aggravated threatening behaviour.

Then on Saturday 23 September he was again arrested for drink driving and taken to Leicester’s Euston Street police station. In the police van, he bragged about being a member of the IRA, called the police “dirty English ********” and hurled racist abuse at a Muslim officer.

Peter Bettany, prosecuting, told the court: “He described himself as a ‘big man’ who could ‘run any prison’ he was sent to.”

Because of the September incident, Hirell was jailed for violating a suspended sentence for another crime. He was released from prison last November.

Raza Sakhi, representing Hirell, of Radstone Walk, Rowlatts Hill, Leicester, said his client, a father-of-three, had stopped drinking since the incident and was not racist, having three inherited children himself double. Mr Sakhi said: “The simple solution would be to send Mr Hirell to prison, but I will ask you not to do that.

“He drinks too much, too much, uses extremely flowery language. He’s angry, he’s angry, and the way he vents it is by abusing everybody – white, black or Asian.”

He said Hirell, who is on benefits, had bipolar disorder, ADHD, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. He said Hirell also had a tumor for which he was currently being treated.

Sentencing them to a suspended prison sentence, presiding magistrate Rachel Udein told Hirell: “Some congratulations are due as you seem to be doing very well. But we have to deal with it.

“What you did was horrible, but the fact that you have to deal with it is to your benefit. You won’t go to jail today, but if you do anything else in the next two years, you will go to jail.”

Hirell received a 22-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, and was ordered to pay £100 to the two officers he abused, £400 in court costs and a £154 victim surcharge .

Hirell told magistrates: “I value second chances. Thank you”.