Nottinghams’ very own “joker” — A look back at the tragic fall of Damien Hammond
A turbulent tale of mental illness, alienation and British systemic failure
Gotham.
It’s more than just a comic book location, a fictional city filled with cloaked vigilantes and copious levels of crime. In reality, the real world Gotham, pronounced Goat-ham, is a small village situated in Nottinghamshire, England. Despite being a minor settlement with a 2011 population estimate of around 1,600, it has a unusual history. With a name meaning “Goat home” in old english, the village is perhaps best known for the myth of the “wise men of Gotham”. The tale, according to folklorist’s, involves the villagers feigning insanity to avoid a monarch’s, King John 1’s, planned highway to enter construction.
According to this obscure Nottinghamshire legend, one of the ways they intimidated the King and Subjects was too imitate birds and make loud, aggressive noises. This would’ve been even more concerning back then as insanity was seen as contagious by medical professionals. The encounter, whether completely accurate, exaggerated or just plain ficticious clearly stuck with the general public.
Following American Cartoonist Bill Finger discovering an ad for one “Gotham Jewellers” in the early 1940s, inspiring the fictional crime ridden metropolis of the same name in his at the time brand new “Batman” comics, the Village has become understandably synonymous with the franchise. Fans of the comics have stolen the “Gotham” village sign multiple times as the Batman franchise began to get more popular.
In regards to this, known as a “volatile” individual, prolific homeless criminal Damien Hammond became well known to the citizens of nearby Nottingham, a city within the Midlands Region of the United Kingdom. With a criminal conviction list within the triple digits, possibly being as high as either 100 or 110, Hammond had been known to police for offences since the age of twelve.
Whilst unknown when he started to don the “joker” attire, Batman obsessive Hammond began to display bizarre behaviours which started to gain him attention around 2016. A self described “villain”, numerous eyewitness accounts involved him jumping out at members of the public at night, disrupting traffic, countless thefts from supermarkets and harassing people.
One online commenter recounted a situation where Hammond “cursed him out” for not wanting to pay him to do a magic trick. Hammond and his joker persona got so well known around the city, that when searching for him, police would simply ask locals “Have you seen the joker?”.
This is demonstrated on film in an episode of British documentary series Cops UK : Bodycam Squad. In the scene, he is shown to be approached by the police and is subsequently placed into a police van.
Things only worsened for Hammond where he, following a few years of petty crime, found himself addicted to smoking a former “legal high” drug named mamba. The drug, according to local newspaper “Nottingham Post”, was particularly prevalent at this time.
According to the same article from March 2019, just two months before Hammond was caught with the drug by police, local resident Michael Slater was given a year long conditional discharge for using mamba. Slater had been caught possessing during a routine “stop and search” and mentioned he would frequently buy it from local shops, despite its recent illegality.
Known as a synthetic substitute for cannabis, Sky News reported in 2017 that six police officers in Birmingham had to restrain a drug user who had sliced off his own nose due to taking the drug.
Despite Hammond eventually finding housing to help ease him into society, unfortunately his mamba problems had become to severe to bear. On the 30th of December 2019, a pair of council workers arrived at the apartment block housing Hammond.
Getting on with that mornings worn, they started to pick up the discarded pieces of furniture kicked to the kerb by the local residents. Watching on from a window 100 feet above ground, Hammond had a meltdown noticing them discard a Television set he owned.
Shouting abuse to the workers below, and becoming emboldened by them defending themselves by claiming they were just doing their jobs, Hammond found a bowling ball, wrapped it with a pair of jeans, and dropped it. The ball fell and hit one of the workers on the skull.
The ensuing police presence to the apartment resulted in a two hour police stand off with Hammond shouting abuse at officers, before dramatically setting himself ablaze and jumping out of his window.
When the case went to the courts, it was realised the cause of the incident was a mental breakdown enhanced by copious amounts of mamba, which Hammond was high on at the time. Following Hammond pleading guilty, Judge James Sampson was responsible in handing him a sixteen year extended sentence, with twelve of these years being in police custody, as well as an extended licence period of four years, calling him a “volatile individual” and reffering to the crime as a “wicked act”.
Prosecutor Stuart Lody described his offending as “prolific” referencing numerous instances of him getting convicted of petty crime. Lody added that Hammonds’ victim, a man named Mark Poyser, had suffered a brain haemorrage from the attack, which led to a change in his personality. Prosecutors noted Poyser now has to carry a card explaining his brain injury in case members of the public question him on his behaviour which they could find unusual. He told the courts…
“At home, my injuries continue to affect me and my family,” Mr Poyser said in a statement read to the court.
“I’m still living with the actions of the person who assaulted me. Because of my brain injury, I’m not the same person I was and I’m still coming to terms with this.
“I live with this every day and so do those close to me.”
— Mark Poyser, victim of Hammond.
The Judge also learned that Hammond had previously been prescribed anti psychotic medication from doctors, which Hammond had often neglected to take.
Despite a GoFundme petition trying to get law firms to drop all charges against Hammond, noting flaws in the british mental health healthcare system as a main reason, it is unlikely that Hammond will be released any time soon.
