A MAN detained by police following a report of someone contemplating suicide on a railway line ended up headbutting a police officer.

Mark Samuels had also tried to bite the officer, a court was told.

Samuels, of Bennions Road in Hightown, Wrexham, admitted assaulting emergency worker PC Robert Morris and trespassing dangerously close to the railway line at Gwersyllt on March 30.

Deputy District Judge Gerallt Jones, who warned that he had considered immediate custody because of the seriousness of the assault, imposed a 12 week prison sentence suspended for a year.

Samuels, 34, was placed on 10 days rehabilitation and ordered to carry out 50 hours unpaid work.

He has to pay a £115 surcharge and £85 prosecution costs together with £250 compensation to the officer.

Prosecutor Rhian Jackson told North East Wales Magistrates Court that police received a report of a male attempting to kill himself on the train track. Train services had to be halted.

Officers checked Wrexham central and general stations and then travelled with blue lights to Gwersyllt and Samuels was located running down the railway in the direction of Chester.

Mrs Jackson said a search was carried out and Samuels was located on a grassed area behind a garage five metres away from the line.

He swore and told officers they had better leave him alone.

They tried to calm him down but he became more aggressive.

Restrained and handcuffed, he pulled the officer's hair and went to bite him.

PC Morris moved his head away and held him until further officers arrived.

He was then handcuffed and when he got to his feet he butted his officer's right cheek and and also made contact with his eye and nose.

Samuels was taken to the floor and again restrained, Mrs Jackson told the Mold court.

He was then taken to a police vehicle but he was not compliant and would not put his legs in the vehicle.

Samuels was then taken to the Hedfan Psychiatric Unit at Wrexham.

Interviewed, he confirmed he was feeling suicidal and was on an embankment next to the track.

He had been drinking, had not taken his medication and told how he got off the embankment and went to a nearby field.

Samuels confirmed he told officers to go away but they said they could not and he was detained under the Mental Health Act.

He also confirmed he had headbutted the male officer and apologised for his actions.

In a victim impact statement, the officer said his right cheek was swollen and he had bruising around his cheek and eye which was painful.

It had affected his personal life did not expect to have to explain injuries to his family after being assaulted at work.

He went to work to help members of the public and did not expect to be assaulted.

The Mold court heard Samuels had previous convictions for 11 offences including an assault on a police officer in March 2018.

Solicitor Laura Preston-Hayes, defending, said her client had very significant health problems.

He had only had one psychiatric appointment since his release from custody in June of last year but was due another appointment this week.

"It is clear that he has been going through a period where he has been considering taking his own life," she said.

There had been six incidents since his release from prison and they were not cries for help.

They were serious attempts which included an overdose and an incident where he drank bleach.

"On this occasion he jumped onto a train track," she said.

There was concern that he would be severely injured or killed, but he got himself from the situation he was in at the track and lay down in a field where he was trying to gather his thoughts.

It was at the time when he was lying on his back in the midst of the trauma he had experienced that the police officer attended and the defendant accepted that he had acted inappropriately.

He was awaiting a possible diagnosis of autism.

Miss Preston-Hayes said in court Samuels was a quiet and reserved young man and she found to difficult to associate him with his behaviour in the incident and previous incidents.

"He clearly needs assistance," she said.

That day he met up with a long-standing friend, had some drink, had not taken his medication and appreciated he should not have been drinking.

"He is still not in a good place," she said.

Since his release from prison there had been three emergency admissions to Hedfan and he had been released with the undertaking that an appointment would be made for him.