Actor Stephen Tompkinson appeared exclusively on Lorraine today to speak about recently being found not guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm, from an incident that took place outside of his home in May 2021.
In his first TV interview since the five-day trial finished last week, the former Ballykissangel actor began by telling Lorraine what happened on that fateful evening.
“It was about half five on a sunny morning at the end of May, a beautiful day and these two chaps turned up, one just in his underpants and socks.
“His friend who was also very dishevelled, incredibly unsteady. They were the definition of drunk and disorderly – several other people in the street had heard the commotion. They were swigging from a full sized bottle of Jagermeister, which you don’t find next to the Sherry or Port.”
“They were in a heck of a state. It turns out the chap was four times over the drink-drive limit, so I called the police. I was worried this bottle was going to break in the area where there’s a seven-year-old in the house who plays with her skateboard and bike. They didn’t seem to be horrible in any way, they were just carrying on. We’ve all been drunk now and again.”
Stephen went on to say after asking the men to move on and letting them know he’d called the police, “They turned a bit nasty and turned on me.”
“I stopped one of them with my open palm from advancing any further. Because of the state he was in, he took a tumble and fell about eight feet away from me, smacked the back of his head and got a very serious brain injury. Not a joking matter, that had to be investigated.”
“Another neighbour had thought that… I had the phone in my hand and I had a dark blue dressing gown, she thought she’d seen a clenched fist. She was 125 ft away and at a first floor window and saw me as the aggressor, which I wasn’t.”
Stephen explained the situation had to be investigated.
“I thought to myself it could have been investigated a lot sooner and dealt with there and then, rather than waiting two years,”
Talking about the support his friend and actress Jessica Johnson gave him during the stressful period, Stephen said, “She’s amazing” and added that something that happened to her six weeks later put his troubles into perspective.
Jess’ mum and stepdad were tragically killed when a lorry ploughed into them.
Explaining further, Stephen said, “We were both doing ‘Educating Rita’ at the time. It had been stopped because of Covid. Two days after that, Jess went, ‘No’… She went into this incredible mode and a few weeks later attended the double funeral of her mum and stepdad and then was back on stage that night in Kingston.”
“If you ever needed an example of strength and a shining light, she has been that throughout and has looked after me through this and I’ll never be able to thank her enough.”
Lorraine weekdays at 9am on ITV1 & ITVX
