"I thought I was going to die": Police officer relives moment he was brutally attacked in powerful video

Lancashire Police released the eye-opening video (click to play above) of the incident to illustrate the risks officers face on a daily basis, and how quickly a night can take a turn for the worse.

As a result of being knocked to the ground by a drunken assailant, PC Ashley Aspinall suffered a life-threatening head injury, including bruising to the brain. At one point Ashley and his distraught colleagues feared he might die at the scene.

He ended up being in hospital for 11 days and it was a further four months before he was able to return to the job he loves – being a response officer in the resort. Even then he had to spend some time on restricted duties.

‘I thought I was going to die’

PC Aspinall said: “I remember my thoughts at the time where I was genuinely convinced that I was going to die and had mentally made peace with that. I thought about the good experiences I had had in life and gave up on myself in that moment. The only thing that kept me going was thinking about my daughter and seeing her again.”

PC ‘relives’ brutal attack

PC Aspinall recalls, in the video, hearing the ‘fear in [the] voices’ of the paramedics who tended to him, outside a bar in Blackpool town centre. He added: “Since the incident, I keep reliving it in my head trying to understand if there is anything I did that could have triggered this incident and I honestly believed that I didn’t... I don’t believe any of my actions that day warranted this level of injury.”

PC Ashley’s attacker spared jail

Ian Scott, 50, of Cavendish Road, Bispham, was arrested and later charged with a Section 18 Assault and assaulting a police officer. He pleaded guilty to a Section 20 wounding of an emergency service worker.

He admitted those offences and appeared in the dock at Preston Crown Court last month (July 30) where he was given a 24-month suspended sentence. He was also ordered to complete a 120-day alcohol abstinence requirement, complete 15 Rehabilitation Activity Requirement days, pay £1,500 compensation, and undertake 200 hours of unpaid work.

You can hear more from PC Ashley Aspinall on how the near fatal assault affected his life in our full report here.