Woman jailed after slashing PC's face with knife

A woman has been jailed after slashing a police officer's face with a hunting knife and attacking another when they went to help.

Hannah Smaile called Cumbria Police on 28 May and two officers were deployed to her home in Lister Court, Carlisle, responding to a report of an alleged assault.

While talking to Smaile, she "appeared from a side room and lunged towards" the female officer, the force said.

Smaile, 26, of Charles Street, was jailed for four years at Carlisle Crown Court after admitting assaulting the officers and threatening them with a knife. She will also spend two years on extended licence.

The force said Smaile trapped PC Heather Wilson in a corner and slashed her across the nose.

"The next thing I know she's running at me with a knife. I think I just screamed and tried to push her off," the officer recalled.

"I felt pain across my face and I could feel blood dripping down."

Smaile then thrusted towards PC Matthew Johnston with the knife in attempts to injure him.

The court heard both officers were treated in hospital following the attack, with PC Wilson requiring eight stitches to her face, two weeks before her wedding day.

Prosecutor Tim Evans said of the two PCs: "If each had not provided assistance to the other, the injuries each sustained could have been much worse.

"Both officers talk of the enormous gratitude they have for the actions of each other."

Det Con Lisa Atkinson called it "a horrific and completely unprovoked attack" on two officers who had attended the address "following a request for help from the defendant".

She said they had displayed "exceptional bravery and courage in a situation they could never have foreseen".

The court head how both officers had been left haunted by the incident.

The court heard PC Wilson had visited the address the day before and discussed Smaile's mental health problems during a welfare check.

She had been suffering from psychosis, was not taking prescribed medication and had consumed cannabis.

Defence lawyer Mark Shepherd said it was her mental health issues that had led her to act "irrationally and violently".

Smaile admitted unlawfully and maliciously wounding an officer with intent to cause her grievous bodily harm, assaulting an officer, causing him actual bodily harm and two charges of threatening both officers with a knife.

Judge Nicholas Barker told Smaile: "The knife that was used against the two police officers… is a fearsome object and could easily have caused significantly worse injuries than it did."

The judge concluded the two PCs should be formally commended for their bravery.

"Both officers have acted, in my judgement, in an impressive and dignified way," he said.

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