Man jailed for courtroom attack

The attack happened at the Royal Courts of Justice

A man who punched a judge in the face when he disagreed with his ruling has been jailed for 18 months.

Kourosh Etmad-Moghadam, 47, from Lambeth, south London, lost his temper during a hearing at the High Court last October to determine whether he could pursue a civil action against the Metropolitan Police and the Lord Chancellor.

On Thursday at Southwark Crown Court, he was convicted of two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and one of criminal damage.

Sentencing him, the judge described the attack as "a very serious incident indeed".

The court had heard Etmad-Moghadam became more and more agitated as the judge delivered his ruling and demanded to know whether Mr Justice Sir Christopher Pitchford was a freemason.

He threw a glass of water at Sir Christopher which missed but hit the court clerk instead.

He grabbed me by the neck ...and then grabbed me by the tie, pushing me against a pillar Gavin Dawson, court usher

The judge then managed to deflect a plastic book holder which went flying across the bench, but that hit the clerk as well, bruising her arm.

The next missile was a heavy brass lamp, which shattered when it hit the ground.

Then Etmad-Moghadam climbed on to a table and punched the judge several times before security staff arrived.

"One struck me in the corner of my eye, another in the front of my forehead, and a third on the back of my head," Sir Christopher said.

Court usher Gavin Dawson, who had intervened, was also attacked.

"He grabbed me by the neck ...and then grabbed me by the tie, pushing me against a pillar. You could really hear my head hit it. Then he kicked me in the knee," the official said.

"If you were sitting in front of the television you would think 'this is good action'."

'Freemasonry conspiracy'

Sentencing Etmad-Moghadam, Judge Christopher Hardy told him: "Judges and others who work in court need to be protected from people like you.

"I must deter others and maintain the dignity of the courts and that requires a custodial sentence."

The origins of the civil case had gone back to 1995 when Etmad-Moghadam claimed he was the victim of a "conspiracy involving freemasonry judges and various police officers and loss adjustors" who were trying to stop him "blowing the whistle on a fraud".

A series of High Court hearings followed and he began a civil action against the Lord Chancellor and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

The case was rejected, but he tried to get the ruling overturned by Sir Christopher in October.