Phillip Heeley (Image: North Wales Police)
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A judge has branded a Bangor man a “danger and a nuisance to the local community” after sending him to prison for 13 months over a string of offences, including a confrontation with neighbours in which he armed himself with a shovel.
Phillip Heeley, of Orme Terrace, was sentenced at Caernarfon Crown Court on Tuesday, Daily Post reports. The court heard he had not started the trouble that led to the shovel charge, but he was already subject to a suspended sentence and a restraining order at the time.
Sentencing
Her Honour Nicola Jones said she could not suspend the prison terms. Heeley received three months for the public order offence involving the shovel, six months for breaching the restraining order and two months for assaulting an emergency worker, the police officer. She also activated two months of an earlier suspended sentence, taking the total to 13 months.
Heeley has 41 previous convictions covering 73 offences.
The shovel confrontation
Prosecutor Richard Edwards described a “long standing neighbours’ dispute” that boiled over on July 6. Heeley had been shouting outside his partner’s home in Bangor when he turned on two neighbours, telling them “you’re f****** dead” and “watch what happens”. Police attended and the situation calmed.
It flared up again at around 9.30pm. Heeley, who was drunk, argued with Jonathan Purnell and picked up a shovel, while Mr Purnell had a baseball bat. During the same incident a woman, Donna Edwards, hit Heeley’s partner Gemma Brook in the face and arm with a plank of wood.
Mr Edwards told the court: “It caused the defendant’s temper to rise. The defendant was not the initial aggressor but he reacted to what others were doing.”
Assault on a police officer
Heeley was also under a restraining order banning him from approaching a neighbour in Orme Terrace. He breached it by following the man, and police were called on July 9, 2025.
Once handcuffed, Heeley was being put into a police van in Orme Road when the handcuffs were used to hit an officer, who felt pain in his finger. He feared it was broken, but it turned out to be painful and red rather than fractured.
Mitigation
Sarah Yates, defending, accepted her client’s record was “unenviable” but said every offence had been committed while he was drunk, with alcohol a “massive factor” in a lifestyle that had at times been chaotic.
Heeley accepts responsibility for what he did for the “most part”, she said. He has PTSD, anxiety and depression stemming from events in his childhood and the recent deaths of his parents, and has been trying to cope with those alongside his alcohol dependency. Since being remanded he has “reset”, detoxed and completed anger management courses.
Partner’s statement
In a statement, Ms Brook said the confrontation in the street had been a “breaking point” for Heeley after “sustained harassment”. While he has been on remand, she said, she has had to “watch him struggle from a distance unable to help and reassure him”.
