A MAN staged a rooftop protest and shouted abuse at around a dozen police officers in body armour after his faulty electronic tag went off.

Matthew Waters barricaded himself inside his flat before climbing onto the roof and hurling insults like “pigs” at police in the stand-off.

He was under curfew following his arrest last December on suspicion of assaulting his ex-partner, possessing a noxious substance of CS gas and criminal damage.

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Police went to the 35-year-old’s address in Pontypool’s Broadway in April when they were informed his tag had gone off.

Cardiff Crown Court heard officers discovered the defendant was home and he told them the electronic bracelet was “malfunctioning” and he had informed the security company.

Prosecutor Steven Donoghue said: “When the police asked him to come down, he refused to leave the three-floor block of flats.

“He stuck his head out of the window and started shouting threats to the officers that if they came in, they would ‘get this’.

“The defendant had something in his hand, but they couldn’t see what it was.”

Mr Donoghue said the police called for back-up and around 10-12 officers wearing body armour arrived.

He told the court how Waters then climbed onto the roof of the flats through the attic after he barricaded himself into his flat using a chest of drawers.

Mr Donoghue continued: “The defendant then started shouting the odds and called the police ‘pigs’.

“He was up there for some time, about 15 to 20 minutes, before he came down of his own accord.

“After ranting and raving he calmly came down and was arrested.”

Waters admitted committing a public order offence.

The court heard how two of the previous matters from December he was charged with were dropped by the prosecution after Waters’ ex-partner moved to Spain and refused to come back to the UK.

He had pleaded guilty to criminal damage after smashing a window at his former girlfriend’s home.

Mr Donoghue said Waters had 30 previous convictions for 56 offences, “including four against persons and a number of drugs offences”.

Ieuan Bennett, mitigating for the defendant, said: “He didn’t stay as calm as he should have when the policed turned up.

“He was rather fed up of the tag going off.”

Judge Nicola Jones heard how Waters had already served the equivalent of a six-month jail sentence after being subject to the electronically-monitored curfew for 90 days.

She told him: “You came down from the roof after you made your point.”

Waters was fined £100, ordered to pay £130 prosecution costs and a victim surcharge of £85.