• Wed. Feb 19th, 2025

Banbury knifeman who used racist language sentenced

Byoxfordnewspaper

Feb 17, 2023

A man who racially abused a police station nurse claimed he was ‘not racist’.

Tomas Mclaughlin’s wits were said to have been addled by alcohol when he was arrested in Banbury town centre threatening another group of men with a knife on the night of December 16.

Taken to the police station, he was seen by a Thames Valley Police nurse at around 6am the following morning – but demanded to see the force’s doctor instead.

Employing vile racial slur, Mclaughlin told the clinician: “I don’t want to see a f***ing nurse, I want to see a f***ing doctor. F*** off you n*****, I don’t want to see you I want see a doctor.”

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He repeated the slur: “F*** off you n*****.”

Mclaughlin, 30, of Bretch Hill, Banbury, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to making threats with a knife and racially-aggravated harassment.

Mitigating on her client’s behalf on Thursday (February 16), Gordana Austin told the Recorder of Oxford Judge Ian Pringle KC that her client acknowledged there was ‘no excuse whatsoever’ for his behaviour at the police station.

“He admitted in his interview that he should never have said anything like this and he says he’s not racist. The fact is he was highly intoxicated on [this] occasion,” she said.

The defendant's partner, with whom he was expecting a child, was asked by Judge Pringle: “Do you know what you’re taking on in Mr Mclaughlin?” She replied: “I do.”

“Do you know he’s got no less than 26 previous convictions for 30 odd convictions?” the judge added. Asked why she believed he was going to change, she said that one could ‘already see the change’ in him and he had accepted he had a problem with alcohol.

Mclaughlin has previously gone to prison, including in 2010 for stashing a replica handgun and an affray and in 2016 for a joint attack that left the victim requiring a plate to be fitted to his broken jaw.

Sentencing him to a 14 month suspended jail sentence on Thursday, Judge Pringle said it was ‘no surprise’ Mclaughlin was drunk when he committed the latest offences.

“You’ve been drinking excessively for almost all your adult life and probably as a juvenile as well. And that has been the source of your problems and why you have regularly appeared before the courts,” he said.

The judge described a letter Mclaughlin had written to him as ‘powerful’ and said he had found the ‘good fortune’ to find the partner who had given evidence in his support.

As part of his suspended prison sentence, Mclaughlin was ordered to complete an alcohol treatment programme, 100 hours of unpaid work and up to 55 rehabilitation activity requirement sessions with probation.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward