Mentally-ill man jailed for racist attack on Bath busker

A man with a personality disorder who racially abused busker Delroy Fowlin in Bath has been jailed because hospitals would not be able to treat him.

Shane Shippam, 28, was drunk and had been taking drugs when he picked up some coins from busker Delroy Fowlin's guitar case and threw them at him.

Mr Fowlin – well-known in Bath for his reggae singing – tried to push him away with his guitar, but Shippam shouted racial abuse and hit him around the head with a dog chain.

A trained first-aider, Helena Bouyamourn, told him to stop and pulled Mr Fowlin away.

Shippam hurled a sherry bottle at them, which hit Miss Bouyamourn in the face, cutting her forehead, fracturing her nose and causing nerve damage.

"She described it as extremely frightening. There was a burning sensation to her face. Her eye felt heavy and numb," said Julian Howells, prosecuting at Bristol Crown Court.

Shippam, who was living in a Bath hostel, pleaded guilty to racially-aggravated battery, grievous bodily harm and a public order offence, and was jailed for 30 months.

Judge Julian Lambert told him: "You suffer from a mental disorder said to be not of a nature or degree that requires treatment in hospital. That's what a specialist psychiatrist says.

"It's plain you need treatment, but nothing is available to you."