Weymouth dog owner admits punching warden (From Thisisdorset)

Weymouth dog owner admits punching warden

9:00am Saturday 5th December 2009

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A 41-year-old woman punched and scratched a council dog warden and then assaulted a policeman who tried to arrest her, a court heard.

The warden was attacked while he was investigating an earlier complaint about her dogs, a court was told. And she kicked a policeman who was called to the scene following he altercation with the warden.

Samantha Jane Bugler, of Granby Close, Weymouth, appeared from custody before the town’s magistrates court.

She admitted an assault by beating of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council’s dog warden Ian Lewis and assaulting a police officer by kicking him when she was being arrested.

Both offences date from November 27 this year.

Holly Huxtable, defending, said Bugler was walking her two dogs on a field where she said pets were allowed off the lead to run. She claimed the dog warden had accosted her about the pets not having collars and that an argument ensued.

The court was told that when Mr Lewis went to an elderly neighbour’s home, Bugler claims she heard herself being described as ‘a slut’.

It was then she angrily punched the dog warden to the face.

Miss Huxtable told magistrates: “She knows full well that she made the wrong decision in the heat of the moment.”

When police arrived Bugler maintained it had been her intention to co-operate.

But she said that she only reacted after she was hurt and kicked out.

She had been ‘unceremoniously put to the floor’ – hurting her back which was already painful – and it was then she kicked the officer.

Bugler admitted being in breach of a conditional discharge imposed in October after she admitted behaving threateningly in the town’s Jobcentre.

Magistrates gave her conditional bail to January 4 and asked for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.

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