WATCH | Convicted Killer Released on Licence Tried to Throw PC Alice Beer Off a Balcony. She Thought She Was Going to Die.
Guy Pottle had already taken a life. He was let out of prison early. Weeks later, he bottled a new officer over the head and tried to push her to the ground several metres below.
Guy Pottle killed someone in 2019. He was convicted of manslaughter, sentenced, and sent to prison. At some point after that, the system decided he was ready to be released. He was let out of prison early on licence and returned to the community.
On Tuesday 10 February, in the early hours of the morning, PC Alice Beer responded single-crewed to a report of an assault at a block of flats on Drake Road, Newton Abbot. She found Pottle on a ledge above a first-floor balcony. She climbed to his location and reached out to grab his arm.
She was trying to help him….
He smashed a glass vodka bottle over her head.
Had Pottle still been in prison, PC Beer would not have been on that balcony. She would not have spent the night in hospital. She would not have spent the months that followed trying to process what happened to her. The system that put him back on the streets very nearly got her killed.
The very system that emergency workers risk their lives to protect, failed PC Beer. A convicted killer, let out of prison early…
What the footage shows
What followed the initial attack is captured in body-worn camera footage released by Devon and Cornwall Police. It is, as the judge who later sentenced Pottle described it, simply chilling.
After striking PC Beer with the bottle, Pottle climbed back onto the balcony and attacked her again, this time attempting to push her over the railings. PC Beer was several metres above the ground. She clung to the railings to stop herself from falling headfirst to the street below.
Pottle did not stop. He punched her repeatedly to the head and face before jumping from the balcony himself. PC Beer activated her emergency button and other officers rushed to her aid and arrested Pottle at the scene.
PC Beer’s injuries included a large cut over her right eye, multiple smaller lacerations to her face, and bruising and scratches to her neck and arms. She was taken to hospital and later discharged.
She had survived.
In the immediate aftermath, her words were simple.
“He tried to throw me over the balcony. I thought I was going to die.”
A system that releases convicted killers early
Pottle is not an isolated case. He is part of a very worrying and disturbing pattern.
In England and Wales, the automatic release of prisoners on licence is not a discretionary judgment that someone has been rehabilitated. It is a legal requirement. Prisoners serving standard determinate sentences are released automatically at the halfway point of their term, supervised by the Probation Service, and subject to licence conditions. Breach those conditions and they are recalled to prison.
The system was already straining long before Pottle walked out of the gates. Then, in September 2024, the government went further. Under a scheme known as SDS40, nearly 44,000 prisoners were released early from prison having served just 40% of their sentences, in the 12 months to December 2025 alone, as ministers scrambled to ease an overcrowding crisis.
The consequences have been entirely predictable. Prison recalls rose by 42% in a single quarter following the introduction of early release. Ministry of Justice data shows that around 38 to 44% of adults released from custody go on to reoffend within 12 months. For those serving shorter sentences, the rate climbs higher still, reaching 60 to 66% for those who served less than a year.
In the quarter from April to June 2025 alone, there were 11,041 prison recalls. Roughly one in four of those recalls was triggered by a further offence being committed.
Those are not abstract statistics. Behind each of those numbers is a potential victim. Behind many of them is an emergency worker who had to attend.
The sentencing
Pottle pleaded guilty at Exeter Crown Court on 26 March to attempted grievous bodily harm and unlawful wounding. His Honour Judge James Patrick sentenced him to 10 years and 6 months for the attempted GBH charge, and 3 years for unlawful wounding, to be served concurrently rather than consecutively. He added a further 5 years on extended licence, a measure used specifically when the court considers the standard licence period insufficient to manage the ongoing risk the offender poses.
The judge did not mince his words.
“You are an extremely dangerous man and the public needs to be protected from you. I accept you have had a difficult life and background, but Alice Beer tried her best to help you. You simply attacked her. The footage is simply chilling.
“She thought she would die. She thought she would go head-first. You intended that. You didn’t desist. You fronted up to her and punched her to her head and face. With considerable bravery, she has repeated in court your behaviour on her.”
Pottle will serve two-thirds of his custodial term before being eligible for parole. He has already killed once. He has now tried to kill an emergency worker The five-year extended licence reflects a judicial conclusion that the risk does not simply expire when the prison term ends.
“Her actions and bravery cannot be underestimated”
PC Beer is a new officer. The night she responded to that call, she was at the beginning of what she hoped would be a long career. What happened to her will, by her own account, stay with her for the rest of her life.
Speaking after she returned to work, PC Beer said:
“This is an event that will continue to affect me in all aspects of my life, especially when I am working. I don’t think I will ever be able to thank everyone who has supported me through this, especially those on my team and my crewmate that night, and it’s to them I truly owe being able to return to work when I did.
“I was simply trying to do my job, attempting to ensure no one came to any harm, and I was met with such violence. I feel that this is something I will never truly fully process, and I hope that no one in my position ever has to go through such an event.”
Chief Superintendent Roy Linden, Commander for South Devon, commended PC Beer publicly.
“As a new officer, her actions and bravery cannot be underestimated. Her response to this has been quite simply humbling, and she has vowed not to let this incident define her career. Incidents like this are thankfully rare but it puts into sharp focus the risks officers regularly face in order to protect others from harm.”
PC Beer has since returned to frontline duties.
Well done to Devon and Cornwall Police for releasing the body-worn camera footage publicly. The public should see what their officers face.
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The question nobody in government wants to answer?
A dangerous man convicted of manslaughter was walking the streets of Exeter. A new officer tried to save him from himself. He tried to kill her. She survived because she held on to a railing.
The government’s position on early release and reoffending is that the rates are “broadly in line with what we would expect.” That shocking and cold hearted phrase, repeated by ministers under parliamentary questioning, is worth examining in detail….
