Mansfield man caught up in gun panic after his hearing aid fell out

Officers were called to a report of two men fighting on Teal Avenue, where ‘someone was brandishing some sort of firearm’, on February 12.

Catherine Wood, prosecuting at Mansfield Magistrates’ Court, said Dale Goucher was shouting and swearing, while another man shouted from a window someone had tried to smash his door in.

Goucher, of Park Avenue, accused the man of being ‘a drug dealer’ and told police he had been drinking alcohol all day.

He began shouting: “They’re saying I have a gun and a knife.”

Officers urged him to be quiet, because they were concerned someone else might be armed, but he refused to stop shouting.

Goucher resisted while officers tried to get him into a car, and they delivered three knee-strikes.

Mrs Wood said: “He was so aggressive he began banging his head against the windscreen and had to be restrained in case he injured himself.”

The court heard he has 24 previous convictions for 42 offences; including three counts of being drunk and disorderly in 2006, and was last in court in 2018.

Goucher, who represented himself, said he had been offered a £90 fixed penalty for being drunk and disorderly, but preferred to come to court to make his point.

He said: “When they got me, my hearing aid fell out. I was shouting ‘I can't hear, I can't hear’. When I've not got it in, I speak 10 times more loudly.

“The way I kicked off is because I couldn’t hear them. Once they gave me my hearing aid back I calmed down.

“I was around at my mate’s house and we had been drinking. We had a fall out. Two other blokes came outside and they started something.

“When they said I had a gun, I panicked because I have anxiety. They knocked me against a car and then my hearing aid fell out. I think that was bang out of order."

Goucher was fined £56 and ordered to pay a £34 surcharge.

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