A student who works as a Wetherspoon’s shift leader set off an alarm and hurled fire extinguishers at guests from a sixth-floor window as he went on a drunken rampage through a hotel.
Callum Shepherd, 23, also barged into a terrified woman’s room and collapsed on her bed as he caused mayhem in the Liverpool city centre hotel.
But he has walked free from court with a suspended jail sentence after the judge accepted he had shown genuine remorse for his out-of-character behaviour.
READ MORE: Wetherspoons bouncers ‘slam’ punter to the ground and stamp on him
Shepherd had been out for a session with mates and continued to drink when he got back to the Z hotel at about 3am on September 14 last year, reports the Liverpool Echo.
Staff showed him to his room, but he soon left the hotel before returning again 10 minutes later, Liverpool Crown Court heard yesterday.
That’s when he set off a fourth-floor fire alarm, resulting in about 100 people having to leave the building. While they were outside, he began kicking in some of the bedroom doors.
Guests waiting outside heard a crash and were showered with shards of glass after Shepherd threw a fire extinguisher from a sixth-floor window. He also hurled out two other fire extinguishers and tossed them around the hallways.
At about 4.30am, the Spoons manager forced himself into a resident’s room as she was letting herself in. She shouted at him to get out but he collapsed on her bed, and she was forced to drag him back out to the landing.
A little while later, he damaged a dry riser by smashing through a glass panel.
The road outside the hotel was closed while cops combed the hotel looking for the drunkard. He was eventually found by a fellow resident at 7am on a staircase.
The court heard that when he was interviewed by police, Shepherd, of Melling Road, Cramlington, Northumberland, was “unable to recall what he had been doing” and he was “aghast at his own actions” when he was shown the footage.
Peter Hussey, prosecuting, said: “Quite evidently, he comes from a good background. This is a complete one-off incident, but it was a prolonged incident which affected a large number of people and caused a significant degree of both fear and inconvenience to many of those people – if not all of them.”
Simon Christie, in mitigation, said: “The defendant sitting in the dock today nearly a year after this incident is horrified at what he did, as are his parents. If he could, he would apologise to every single person he inconvenienced that night – in particular the woman whose bedroom he encroached upon.
“This whole exercise has been a source of enormous embarrassment and shame to him. He will not appear in the crown courts again and has the making of a very valuable member of the community.”
Shepherd, who had admitted affray and criminal damage during an earlier hearing, was handed a 20-month jail term, suspended for two years.
Recorder Eric Lamb said: “From your scientific background, you can anticipate the sort of impact a fire extinguisher could have had if it made contact with any of the hotel occupants below.
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“This was a prolonged, frightening incident for a great many people.
“You are of positive good character and you have demonstrated what I accept is genuine remorse. You have demonstrated a willingness to rehabilitate yourself and to start being a successful member of society.”
The Liverpool John Moores University postgraduate is studying for a masters degree in biotechnology having previously graduated with a first. He is also hoping to complete a PHD with the uni.
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