A man who caused more than £15,000 worth of damage and injured a police officer in a drunken rampage at a Midland church has been jailed.

Colin Sheach had pleaded guilty to causing criminal damage to St Peter and St Paul Church in Kingsbury, north Warwickshire, and assaulting a policeman during the incident in December.

Sheach, of The Green, Kingsbury, was jailed for a total of 16 months after a judge at Warwick Crown Court handed the 49-year-old consecutive eight-month sentences for each offence.

Colin Sheach
Colin Sheach

Prosecutor Naomi Nelson-Cofie said that on December 29 Priscilla White, the wife of St Peter and St Paul’s vicar Rev Dr John White, was at home when Sheach turned up asking to be let into the church.

She was about to go out, and explained that she did not have a key, but that her husband would be home shortly.

“Reverend White returned shortly after 4.30 with his son, and was approached by the defendant, obviously under the influence of alcohol and incoherent, who demanded ‘Open the f***ing church or I’ll break in.’

“Reverend White said he would not open it for him because he was drunk, but that if he went away and sobered up, he would let him in.”

Dr White went into the vicarage, but then heard a noise coming from the direction of the church, and when he went to investigate he saw the church door had been smashed open and Sheach was standing in the doorway.

A damaged window inside the church.
A damaged window inside the church

He went back to the vicarage, and both he and a neighbour who had heard the noise called the police.

Officers arrived ‘in numbers’ shortly afterwards to find that windows at the church had also been smashed by Sheach, who had cut himself on the glass in doing so.

One of the officers went inside to speak to Sheach, who was sitting on a pew holding a candlestick which he threw through a window, causing officers outside to have to duck.

Other items were then hurled through the windows, including bowls, ornaments, figures from the church’s nativity scene and a picture frame which struck one officer, causing a deep cut to his forehead which bled profusely.

The Rev White with one of the nativity scenes.
The Rev White with one of the nativity scenes

Eventually other officers from the firearms unit arrived and tried to talk to Sheach, but that was getting nowhere.

So six stun grenades were fired into the church in a bid to distract Sheach, who was brandishing a four-foot-long metal-tipped pole, and Tasers were then used to force him to drop it.

He was arrested and dragged to a police vehicle as he struggled with officers, said Miss Nelson-Cofie.

She said it was estimated Sheach had caused £15-20,000 worth of damage to the church, which had to be closed until January 8, including the doors and the reinforced glass of the stairwell, which alone was worth £5,000, as well as to the windows, fixtures and fittings.

Judge Richard Griffith-Jones commented: “It is more serious because it’s a church, which would cause a lot of offence to people who are worshippers there, and the assault was on a police officer doing his duty.”

The Rev Dr John White outside St Peter and St Paul Church.
The Rev Dr John White outside St Peter and St Paul Church

Miss Nelson-Cofie pointed out that at the time Sheach was subject to a community order imposed in October for resisting a police officer after he had called the police himself to ask to be arrested, threatening to burn a car if they did not turn up.

But he became volatile after his arrest, striking one officer and calling him a ‘black pr***’ and hurling abuse at a female officer.

Omar Majid, defending, told the judge: “My intention is to seek to persuade the court to suspend the sentence. Perhaps the strongest mitigation is his early guilty plea.

“In relation to the offences themselves, it is clear that his actions were awful, particularly in relation to the damage at the church. I am told by Mr Sheach he deeply regrets his actions, and he is apologetic for what happened.

Colin Sheach
Colin Sheach

“The defendant was drunk at the time and was struggling with his mental health.”

Mr Majid said Sheach had had a telephone appointment with the mental health services that day, but they would not speak to him because he was drunk, after which he continued drinking throughout the day and ‘spiralled downwards.’

“When he first attended the church he was there to seek help. He wanted to go in so he could pray, but that changed very quickly because his anger spiralled again while he was in the church.”

Judge Griffith-Jones interjected: “I’m sceptical, because when he did force his way in he wasn’t praying at all. I have a suspicion it was the communion wine he was interested in.”

Urging the judge to suspend any sentence, Mr Majid added that Sheach, who had spent six weeks in custody, lives with his 77-year-old mother who has no-one else to care for her.

But jailing Sheach, Judge Griffith-Jones told him: “You have problems which are not entirely your fault, but they do not provide a blank cheque to behave in the manner you have on the occasions I have to deal with.

The Grade II listed St Peter and St Paul Church.
The Grade II listed St Peter and St Paul Church

“Having been given a chance in October, by the end of December you were drunk and miserable and violent again, and you wanted to get into the church and didn’t take no for an answer.

“You smashed your way in and, once inside, you caused a lot of damage. It was quite sustained, drunken damaging behaviour.

“Yet again police officers had to come to deal with you, and you responded in a violent way, recklessly throwing things, smashing a window and injuring a police officer.

“These offences are so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified.

“The damage is serious, because not only has it done 15 or £16,000 of damage, it causes great offence to damage a place like a church which is held as a place of great value to its congregation and to the general community.

“The damage you do is not only to cause a sense of affront to the people who use the church, that sort of level of damage is not easy to deal with, to get the money together to put it right.

“I note that the church itself was closed over New Year until such time as some sort of repairs could be dealt with.”

Just before he was led from the dock, Sheach, who had been seen by a psychiatrist after being remanded in custody in February, turned and said: “I am really sorry, and thank you for what’s being done for me.”