“Completely naked?” the judge asked and the lawyer confirmed that yes, “he became completely naked”
Faced with two sets of offences committed by Stephen Lee Thompson, District Judge Nigel Broderick imposed sentences of three months and four months, ordering them to be served consecutively.
“I’m entirely satisfied that the custody threshold has been crossed because these offences are extremely serious,” said the Antrim Magistrates Court judge, sitting in Ballymena.
At an earlier hearing 39-year-old Thompson, from Hillside in Antrim, entered guilty pleas to a total of five offences including three charges of common assault and single offences of disorderly behaviour and exposure.
Taking the incident in chronological order, a prosecuting lawyer told the court it was just before 8pm on 7 May this year when police received a report of a naked male assaulting members of the public on the Station Road in Antrim.
“Completely naked?” the judge asked and the lawyer confirmed that yes, “he became completely naked” as the incident progressed.
“At the start he was wearing trousers with no top but as the incident went on, he removed his bottom half,” she told the court.
Lee Thompson stripped naked and tried to assault numerous members of the public during a rampage
When police arrived, Thompson was standing on the road, “behaving in an aggressive manner…completely naked and in an intoxicated state.”
The first victim told police he had walked out of the bus station when the defendant ran up behind him and “swung his arm around his neck and shoulders in an aggressive manner.”
He was able to get into a woman’s car to get away from Thompson and the court heard that as he ran up to the car, “arms out by his side,” the driver feared she would be assaulted so she “struck the defendant to the face.”
Two other members of the public got into her car as well and they all drove off.
Thompson was arrested at the time but released on police bail and the court heard it was almost two weeks later, on 20 May, when he assaulted a 15-year-old schoolgirl.
The prosecutor told Judge Broderick it was around 20:35 when the 15-year-old “confronted him for talking inappropriately” with her mates and he responded by head-butting the teenager.
He was arrested a short distance away, outside Madden’s Bar, and the court heard that he “made admissions” during police interviews.
Stephen Lee Thompson
News in 90 Seconds – July 23rd
Highlighting that Thompson “has serious addiction issues,” defence counsel Grant Powles conceded that “these are very serious matters obviously…but he is remorseful for his behaviour.”
He told the court that in the latter offence, Thompson had been “provoked in the sense of being called paedo by these young girls but he responded in the wrong way, he accepts that.”
Mr Powles suggested “there are sentencing options, apart from custody, that would assist him moving forward” but as Judge Broderick highlighted, such an approach would be acceptable “if it’s a one-off, but he has 113 previous convictions.”
In addition to the jail sentences totalling seven months, the judge also ordered Thompson to sign the police sex offenders register for the next seven years.