Violent Calderdale criminal jailed after disrupting train services by threatening to jump of railway station footbridge

A judge concluded that 23-year-old Jordan Gilligan posed a high risk of serious harm to the public and locked him up as a dangerous offender after hearing details of his violent attacks over a nine-month period.

Judge Rose said drug and alcohol abuser Gilligan, who is understood to be originally from the Brighouse area, was primarily a thief, but he was capable of causing serious harm.

In January Gilligan fled the scene of his latest shoplifting offence at Morrisons in Todmorden, later that day reports came in of a man on the railway tracks near the town’s station.

Prosecutor Phillip Standfast told Bradford Crown Court that the trains were slowed down for an hour while police officers searched for Gilligan, but he was later found on the footbridge at Walsden station.

“He was threatening to throw himself off,” said Mr Standfast.

“Every time the police moved nearer to him he stepped over onto the outside of the footbridge threatening to throw himself off.

“Eventually through mediation the police were able to talk him down and he was arrested.”

Mr Standfast said the incident caused significant delays and train cancellations with disruption lasting for about 11 hours.

Gilligan, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty at previous court hearings to a series of offences including obstructing the railway and inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent to resist apprehension which related to shoplifting incident at the Co-op in Mytholmroyd last December when he struck a member of staff in the face with a bottle.

Mr Standfast said the victim suffered a fractured cheekbone and a wound to his eye and following the attack he had to undergo surgery to treat his injuries.

In a victim impact statement the man said he now had to wear glasses because of his eye injury and suffered numbness in the nerves of his cheek.

Gilligan also admitted an assault charge relating to an incident in May last year when he hit a woman over the head with a bottle causing a cut which had to be glued and a further allegation of assaulting an emergency worker when he struck a prison officer in the eye with a pool ball while he was remanded in custody at HMP Leeds.

Mr Standfast said in response to Gilligan’s attack on the officer the wing “went crazy” and other inmates had to be restrained during the disorder.

Barrister Stephen Wood, for Gilligan, said the incident at the railway station gave an insight into his client’s mental state at the time because he had reached the stage were he was contemplating suicide.

He said Gilligan had not had a happy upbringing and his level of maturity was somewhat below his chronological age.

Judge Rose concluded that Gilligan was a dangerous young man from whom the public required protection and in addition to his five-year prison sentence he imposed an extended licence period of three years.