Former footballer sentenced after six-hour police standoff in Brassall

An Ipswich court has heard of the “culmination of bad events” that led to a six-hour negotiation between a former footballer and police.

Nathan Evans was sentenced on Wednesday after threatening a police officer with a steak knife in April last year.

A once promising football player has been sentenced in an Ipswich court after he threatened police with a weapon before launching into a six-hour standoff.

The court heard on Wednesday, January 12, that 36-year-old dad Nathan Shannon Evans had been at a home in Brassall on April 19, 2022 when police arrived for a welfare check.

Upon entering the property, the officers found Mr Evans brandishing a steak knife, and when asked to drop the weapon, he refused, resulting in one officer withdrawing his gun form its holster.

The court heard Mr Evans ran at them, still holding the knife and then locked them out of the home.

This prompted the police negotiators to be called to the home, who attempted to “talk him down” for six hours before he was eventually arrested.

Defence lawyer Matthew Gemmell told the court his client had a very difficult childhood that now “lived in his head rent-free”, as well as suspected chronic traumatic encephalopathy caused by an on-field head injury which ended his once promising football career.

The court heard that at the time of the offence, Mr Evans had been struggling with his mental health, including suffering from auditory hallucinations, and had recently been through a difficult relationship breakdown. He was also drinking heavily at the time.

Despite this, Mr Gemmell shared that his client had turned his life around since the offence, having “completely 180-ed”.

“He has not squandered his bail opportunities. He has amplified his work, he’s now working, on his own instruction at an excessive rate,” Mr Gemmell said.

“There’s no sign of him slipping backwards, at this point in time — he has the appropriate support structures in place.

“The offending was a culmination of bad events rather than an identifiable pattern.”

Mr Evan’s shared with the court that he was doing everything he could to contribute to society.

“I am working … writing song lyrics to face demons, I am doing everything I can to make things better,” he said.

Magistrate Leanne Scoines admonished the behaviour of Mr Evan’s, noting her concern for the police.

“Officers, you know, have a very difficult job as it is and to be faced with that kind of threat in the line of their duty is to be strongly condemned,” she said.

He was sentenced to six months imprisonment wholly suspended for 12 months.

A conviction was recorded.

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