A police officer feared he would be suffocated during a violent struggle with a drink-fuelled teenager on a train.

Shocking body-worn camera footage played at Maidstone Crown Court showed the moment PCs James Goodwin and Amy Glanville came under attack from passenger Oliver Hills, who had downed more than two litres of vodka.

The British Transport Police officers had boarded a train at Tunbridge Wells to arrest the then 19-year-old on suspicion of assaulting a Sussex Police constable two hours earlier.

Instead of complying with their requests however, the yob lashed out for several minutes, leaving PC Goodwin blue in the face from being smothered and also sinking his teeth into PC Glanville's forearm as he was being restrained.

The officers, assisted by Southeastern staff, eventually had to resort to using Pava spray to force the thug to release his clamped-on jaw as she screamed in pain.

Hills later pleaded guilty to charges of assault on an emergency worker, non-fatal suffocation and assault causing actual bodily harm.

But although a judge accepted the now 20-year-old had a "complex" background which included drug-taking from the age of 11, a diagnosis of ADHD and being kidnapped as a teenager, he said he could not be spared jail for such an "outrageous" incident.

Prosecutor James Harrison told the court on Tuesday (April 30) that Hills, who has previous convictions for violent offences, had first assaulted PC Christina Priftaki-Markoulidis on December 27 last year when she tried to arrest him in Battle, East Sussex, on suspicion of assault and criminal damage.

Having reacted abusively, grabbing and pushing the officer as well as lifting his fists, gesturing 'Come on' as if to fight and raising his hand to her face, he fled before he could be apprehended.

But after Hills jumped on a train from Robertsbridge, police arranged for it to be held when it reached the Kent town.

PCs Glanville and Goodwin approached Hills as he sat at a table with his girlfriend and told him he was under arrest.

But as they tried to place him in handcuffs he erupted in anger, swinging punches towards the officers and landing to the right side of PC Goodwin’s head.

Hills then lurched forward, causing the male officer, who was asthmatic, to fall back into a seat with the defendant on top of him.

"By virtue of his position, he was on PC Goodwin’s stomach and chest, and refused to get up, threatening the other officers present," Mr Harrison told the court.

"PC Goodwin shouted out that he could not breathe and was [seen] turning blue."

His female colleague frantically tried to intervene, only for the defendant to remain in the same suffocating position for several more seconds.

Hills then bit PC Glanville to the inside of her elbow as she screamed in what she later described as "unbearable" pain and, when she used a knee-strike action against his leg in a bid to free herself, he bit down harder.

Throughout the attack, his girlfriend could be seen and heard on the footage repeatedly urging him to calm down and stop, telling him he was "just making it worse".

Hills, of Eastway, Hackney, east London, was finally brought under control with the Pava spray and detained.

PC Goodwin sustained a minor head injury while PC Glanville was left with bruising to both legs and her left arm, and a bite mark with reddening, bruising and which pierced her skin.

The court heard she had to have blood tests and a tetanus booster jab, as well as a course of antibiotics.

In a victim impact statement read to the court she described that although she expected some resistance, she was "not prepared for such an extreme level" of violence.

The female officer also said that she feared her colleague would die as she watched him turn blue.

In his statement to the court, PC Goodwin described struggling for breath and feeling he would pass out, adding: "I really thought I was going to die that night."

Despite his young age, Hills has already notched up 10 previous convictions for 32 offences, including battery, assaulting emergency workers and robbery.

But Stacey-Lee Holland, defending, told the court that since the train station incident he had sought help and support for his mental health, was on regular medication, living in stable accommodation and had reduced both his drug and alcohol intake.

Of his history of substance abuse, she said that having first used cannabis at 11, he progressed to heroin and crack cocaine by the time he was 14, and thereafter tried "every drug he could get his hands on".

The court also heard that he had been brought up surrounded by domestic abuse, went into care at 15, was expelled from school, lived rough for eight months and was kidnapped when he was just 16.

“PC Goodwin shouted out that he could not breathe and was [seen] turning blue…"

Ms Holland said that ordeal had had an "extensive" impact on him and left him "majorly freaked out" whenever people touched him.

"It may explain why he reacted in such a disproportionate manner when the officers sought to arrest him," she explained.

But, urging the court to spare him custody, the barrister added that Hills had now demonstrated a "real prospect of rehabilitation" as well as remorse.

"He has always apologised and said this whole incident should never have happened and is sorry for any distress caused to any of the officers," said Ms Holland.

But on sentencing Hills to 14 months in a young offenders' institution, Recorder Thomas Moran said although he had taken into account the mitigation put forward, appropriate punishment could only be achieved by immediate custody.

"I have watched the body-worn footage and I am sure you can see now that all you had to do was simply comply with their actions," he told Hills.

"For whatever reason, instead of doing that, you violently resisted arrest.

"This was a shocking, outrageous series of events, carried out in public against police officers just trying to do a difficult job."