Council worker told people at shop to 'get back on the boats'

A council worker subjected people in a shop to a tirade of vile racist abuse and told them to "go home" and "get back on the boats".

Kurtis Ball continued to use offensive and racist language even after being arrested and then went on to threaten and assault a police officer.

Swansea Crown Court heard 24-year-old Ball was subject to a suspended sentence at the time of the offending after he and his father attacked customers and staff at a Swansea city centre pub when told they couldn't take their pints out onto the pavement.

Regan Walters, prosecuting, told the court that at shortly before 6pm on September 5 this year police responded to reports of a male shouting at and threatening people at the Nisa shop opposite Swansea's High Street station.

He said Ball directed a series of racial slurs at people and told them to "go back to your f****** country" and "f****** get back on the boats". The defendant was also heard shouting "Wales!" and: "F*** the f****** mosques". When a woman intervened to try to calm the situation the defendant subjected her to abusive sexual language and called her a "slag".

The court heard police officers found the defendant outside the nearby railway station "stumbling around and slurring his speech" and they described him as appearing highly intoxicated. Ball denied being drunk but stated that he had "a couple of beers" after work. Ball was noted to be wearing the uniform of a council employee. 

The court heard the defendant then started using racist terms about people going to and from the station and he started becoming "irate" and resisting officers. His racist language continued after his arrest and while being taken to Swansea Central police station.

The prosecutor said while waiting to be booked into custody the defendant began to threaten a PC and to "square up" to him, telling him: "You’re lucky these cuffs are on, otherwise I’ll go mad". Further officers had to assist with restraining him and placing him in a holding cell. The court heard that when in the cell Ball resumed his threats and racist language and started kicking and headbutting the door and that when an officer went into the cell to stop him harming himself he kicked the PC to the leg.

Kurtis Ball, formerly of of Llwyncelyn Avenue, Pontarddulais, but now of Birchtree Close, Sketty, Swansea, had previously pleaded guilty to racially-aggravated disorderly behaviour with intent to cause harassment, alarm, or distress and to assaulting a constable when he returned to the dock for sentencing. He has seven previous convictions for 11 offences including public disorder, possession of cannabis, battery, possession of cannabis with intent to supply, criminal damage, drug-driving, and being drunk and disorderly.

In September last year the defendant was handed a suspended sentence for affray after he and his father attacked staff and customers at the Eli Jenkins pub in Swansea when told they couldn't take their pints outside onto the pavement. While dad Scott Ball produced a rock in a sock and began swinging the weapon around his son Kurtis headbutted the landlord as the pair declared they could drink wherever they wanted.

At the time of the disturbance Scott Ball was on court bail ahead of a trial for racially abusing and chasing students in Swansea city centre and telling them to "go home" while armed with a knife – offending for which he was subsequently jailed for two years. The father – who has 84 previous offences on his record including eight of possessing offensive weapons or knives as well as assault occasioning actual bodily harm and sexual assault – was sent down for the bar brawl but his son was sentenced to six months in prison suspended for 12 months with the judge telling him: "You have the opportunity to be so much more than the example you have been shown."

Kurtis Ball was still subject to the suspended sentence when he launched the racist tirade in September this year.

Jon Tarrant, for Ball, said the defendant was remorseful for his actions on the day in question and wished to apologise to those concerned and said it may be that "the ghosts of his father resurfaced".

Judge Paul Thomas KC said Ball had subjected people to "a prolonged horrible racist and sexist stream of insults of the worst type" while on a suspended sentence. He told Ball that over the last 15 months his behaviour had been "out of control" as illustrated by the fact that since being arrested and bailed over the September offending he had been arrested on further occasions for other offending, adding: "You simply have learned nothing. You have run out of chances."

With one-third discounts for his guilty pleas Ball was sentenced to three months in prison for the racially-aggravated public disorder and to two months for assaulting a PC to run consecutively making five months in custody. The judge sentenced Ball to three months for breaching the suspended sentence to run consecutively with the sentence for the new offending making an overall sentence of eight months in prison. The defendant will serve no more than half of the sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.