A DRUNK train pasenger who had assaulted a female police officer later told her she ‘belongs in the kitchen’.

The bizarre comment was made by Valdis Smels, 39, faced three charges at Carlisle’s Rickergate court on June 26, 2023, to enter pleas. He pleaded guilty to three charges:

  • Assault by beating.
  • Assault by beating of an emergency worker.
  • Using insulting/threatening words to cause fear.

The incident happed at Wigan Northwestern railway station, during which the police officer was responding to a report of a mentally unstable, threatening man, who was talking in a strange manner.

Mr Smels acted aggressively as security attempted to escort him off the premises, pushing into them.

The police officer told the security officers to let him go as she was worried they would get assaulted further.

The police officer was trying to calm him down, when he took some paper out of his pocket and said “Do you want to know who the f*** I am?”, and “You’re in big trouble b****.”

PC Price, the officer involved, said in a statement read by prosecutor George Shelley that Mr Smels was ‘straining so much you could see the veins in his neck, going up to his eyes’.

The officer feared she would be assaulted, and it was not until intervention by other police officers that he was able to be cuffed and put under arrest, after which Mr Smels said to her ‘you belong in the kitchen, you should be in Afghanistan’, the court heard.

District Judge John Temperley said that the defendant, of Alexandra Road in Glasgow, was not to be sentenced that day, and that sentencing guidelines start at being issued a community order.

“There are aggravating features, you were intoxicated very heavily, and the person toward whom your anger was directed was a police officer trying to do her job, and you’ve got previous convictions for assaulting police officers,” he said.

The district judge ordered a report from Scottish social services to continue the case. The defendant was released on unconditional bail, to return on July 17.