I have recently concluded another successful claim, which once again sadly demonstrates why the public of England and Wales cannot have the faith which they deserve in the Police complaints system.
On this occasion, the offending Police Force was Cleveland Police, and the incident about which I was instructed took place in 2019.
My client Edward was pulled over whilst driving and arrested on suspicion of motoring offences.
Edward was transported to a local Police Station and ‘booked in’ before the Custody Sergeant.
Edward was wearing trainers. The Custody Sergeant informed him that he could keep his trainers on whilst in the cell if he removed the laces. It was cold and Edward had no socks on; not wanting to have to go barefoot in the cell, he compliantly removed his laces and handed them over.
Edward was then escorted to a cell by two Detention Officers. When they reached the cell door, one of the Detention Officers told Edward to remove his trainers. Edward declined to do so, on the basis that he had no socks on and that the Custody Sergeant had been content with him removing his laces.
However, the Detention Officers continued to demand that Edward remove his shoes, without making any effort to explain why. Edward requested a pair of custody slippers as an alternative, but this was also refused by the Detention Officers, as was his request to speak to a senior officer about the issue.
The officers then resorted to force. They took hold of Edward’s arms and pushed him against the corridor wall before twisting his right arm up behind his back. While Edward was restrained in this painful position, one of the officers forcibly removed his trainers and he was then pushed barefoot into the cell.
There was absolutely no need for this violence or indeed the whole degrading act of removing Edward’s footwear. Edward felt upset, hurt, and humiliated.
Edward was released from custody the following day.
Prior to his release he made a complaint to the Duty Inspector regarding the assault that he had suffered from the Detention Officers and was informed that his complaint was to be forwarded to the Professional Standards Department (PSD) of Cleveland Police for investigation.
PSD duly investigated and after reviewing relevant Custody CCTV footage and considering the accounts of the two Detention Officers involved, dismissed Edward’s complaint in its entirety.
Long experience has taught me to be cynical about the methods and agenda of the Police complaint process. In Edward’s case, the PSD report (which was barely four pages long) sought to justify the confiscation of his trainers on the alleged basis that he could have used them as weapons or that they could have been picked apart to create material for use in self-harm. However, the report singularly failed to address the fact that the Custody Sergeant had directed that Edward could keep his trainers (if he removed the laces, which he did) and the report failed to provide any justification as to why it was suspected by the Detention Officers that Edward might use his pair of trainers to self-harm or to attempt to harm others.
Edward had not been resistant or violent to the officers and nor did he have any mental health issues.
Having had his complaint rejected, Edward was left, as so many others in the past have been, with no way of achieving justice other than suing the Police and he duly sought my specialist assistance in doing so.
The author of the Complaint report had approached his task as if he were a student addressing a theoretical question as to possible justifications for the removal of a detainee’s footwear – but then utterly failed to consider the reality of what happened and whether the Detention Officers had such justification in the circumstances. This demonstrates either naivety or cynicism on the part of the PSD investigator, and I strongly suspected the latter.
In my opinion, PSD had wilfully failed to consider whether the Detention Officers had any reasonable justification for their actions – no matter what hypothetical justifications there might have been, applicable in other scenarios – or whether those officers were, in fact, just giving vent to ‘bully-boy’ impulses.
As a result of the use of force upon him Edward had sustained injuries, in particular to his right shoulder, which caused him to have to attend hospital several weeks later because of persisting pain and he was there diagnosed with a rotary cuff injury.
Upon receiving Edward’s instructions, I took steps to obtain his Custody Record and all available CCTV footage before presenting a letter of claim to Cleveland Police.
As per the standard Police playbook, liability was denied.
There was no dispute that force had been used to remove Edward’s shoes, but the Chief Constable’s lawyers contended that force from the Detention Officers was proportionate, necessary, and reasonable.
On review of the documentary evidence which Cleveland Police had provided with their letter of denial, I noted that several important pieces of evidence were missing and thereafter took steps to obtain the same including the notes of the Inspector to whom Edward’s complaint had first been reported, Edward’s Custody medical assessment, and the PSD complaint investigation file.
Notwithstanding Cleveland Police’s robust denial of liability, I counselled Edward that his prospects of success were good and advised him to continue with the claim and thereafter commenced County Court Proceedings against the Chief Constable.
The Police instructed senior Counsel and filed a Defence maintaining their denial of liability, and directions were set to prepare the case for trial.
I am pleased to confirm that Cleveland Police caved in prior to trial and have recently settled Edward’s claim for a significant sum of damages plus legal costs.
Suffice it to say that the money recovered is sufficient to keep Edward in comfortable footwear for the foreseeable future…
In my opinion this is not a matter which the Police should ever have allowed to get to the point that it did. If PSD had adopted an open-minded and fair approach to Edward’s complaint and upheld that complaint, then it is likely that his claim for damages could have been settled through negotiation at an early stage and Court proceedings avoided.
Instead, as is so often the case, I have had to use the tools of the Civil Justice System to rectify another injustice stemming from the biased and dysfunctional Police complaints system.
The standards set by PSD strike me as being most frequently standards of delay, denial, and obfuscation – and those standards then permeate the rest of the Police response to legitimate claims.
The name of my client has been changed.
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