A MAN from Bangor was spared jail after kicking a dog during a “sordid” brawl on a street before twice committing criminal damage to police property.

Matthew Kemp, 35, of Glynne Road, was sentenced to 46 weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for one year, at Caernarfon Crown Court today (May 17).

An officer described the mess Kemp left a police cell in as “the worst he had ever seen”.

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Prosecuting, Karl Scholz told the court that, at about 2.10am on August 29, 2021, Kemp and another man, Jason Roberts, were seen “squaring up” to each other on Holyhead Road.

Kemp, a zoology student at Bangor University at the time, was also armed with a claw hammer, albeit he did not strike anyone with it during this incident.

Closed circuit television footage played in court showed Mr Roberts was also armed with a bottle, as well as a woman “clutching her head in pain” after being stuck to the face.

Another woman could be seen trying to separate Kemp and Mr Roberts, though she is later pushed with such force that she falls to the ground.

A dog, believed to belonging to Mr Roberts and his partner, is seen to be kicked twice by Kemp, “yelping in pain”.

The matter took place in an alleyway by the entrance to Kemp’s home.

For his part, Mr Roberts was given an 18-month community order by magistrates in February 2022.

A witness to the incident said she felt “panicked” and found it “very distressing”, having “never seen that level of violence in the street before”.

She said she was “fearful someone was going to be seriously injured”, and found the violence towards the dog “particularly distressing”.

Police attended while Kemp and Mr Roberts were still in the street; Kemp then returned to his flat, and when officers arrived at his door, he shouted profanities at them through a window.

He was arrested, after which he continued to be “violent and abusive” to officers.

While in a cell, he “ripped up” the custody jumper provided to him, and when officers told him to give them the jumper, he told them he was “black belt-trained” and would make them “work for it”.

Following a further arrest in respect of offences for which Kemp was acquitted last month, he then a damaged police cell on February 26, 2022.

On that occasion, Kemp had been placed in a cell with a working toilet, but urinated on the floor and threw food provided to him around the cell, smearing it over the walls

The food stained the walls’ paint, and a contractor was needed to tend to the damage caused.

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Defending, Elen Owen said Kemp, who had two previous convictions, admitting the offences at a plea and trial preparation hearing.

Kemp was living with fellow students at the time, and said he suspected a crowd saw him leaving a nearby shop to return to his flat during the previous evening.

Ms Owen said Kemp “came to investigate”, and that that was what led to him being “attacked” by Mr Roberts.

He felt “very much a victim” at that stage, but accepts that his subsequent actions went beyond merely self-defence

Kemp was said to be an “animal lover”, but felt he had “no other alternative” but to kick the dog away as it was being “set on him”.

Described as “quite a highly-strung individual”, he was “extremely sorry” for the two acts of criminal damage, and had offered to pay for the repairs.

He has since taken up a new zoology degree in Chester, in which he is “doing very well”, while also due to start a new job as a bar supervisor at a hotel in the city.

Ms Owen invited the court to consider suspending his custodial sentence due to both his remorse and his lack of previous convictions.

She also said Kemp has since stopped drinking alcohol and using drugs.

“He is a hard-working young man with a bright future ahead of him,” she said.

“Rehab is clearly possible; in fact, almost a certainty.”

Sentencing, Judge Rhys Rowlands described the fight Kemp became involved in as a “sordid incident”.

He told him that he had then behaved in “quite vile and disgusting fashion” in smearing cell walls with food.

As well as suspending his sentence, Judge Rowlands imposed multiple costs upon Kemp.

This consisted of £350 each in compensation and in costs to the Crown Prosecution Service, and a £156 statutory surcharge, amounting to a total of £856.

Judge Rowlands said: “You behaved like a complete drunken idiot, bouncing about thinking you were Muhammad Ali.

“You’ve shown you can behave in the past, and in the time elapsed since this incident.

“It seems to me that the evidence points to a realistic prospect of rehabilitation, in your case.”