It was only two years ago that four Merseyside Police Officers were convicted and sentenced to jail for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, after one of them (PC McIntyre) had launched an unprovoked attack upon my client Mark Bamber, a conspiracy that centred around officers turning off their body worn video (BWV) cameras and then failing to upload the earlier footage which they had filmed. This is an example of a new spin on a very old story, one of the oldest forms of Police corruption – Officers beating up a civilian, or witnessing a Police colleague beat up a civilian, and then lying in their subsequent statements in order to cover up the act of aggression and attempt to place the blame on the innocent victim.
Thankfully all four Officers were exposed and have been justly punished for what they did – but only because they were caught out by their own body cameras, and their ham- fisted attempt to hide/ destroy that incriminating evidence.
Indeed, it is now increasingly common for Officers to be convicted of misconduct and/or criminal offences on the basis of their own video footage, as highlighted in a shocking BBC expose published this week which includes the case not only of Mark Bamber, but of another of my clients, assaulted by an officer who then asked the only one of his five colleagues who had turned his body camera on, to not upload his footage on their return to the station. The guilty Officer hoped that thereby the footage would be deleted; instead, it was preserved and led directly to his conviction.
You might think that in light of this wake-up call, Merseyside Police, in particular, would take a strict and rigorous approach to the issue of Officers switching on (or failing to switch on) their cameras in potential conflict situations for the safety of everybody concerned and to best uphold the course of justice. Sadly, as a very recent case in which I am acting illustrates, this is not what has occurred and instead Merseyside Police seem content to allow their Officers to operate a laissez-faire approach to whether they turn their cameras on or not.
This case concerns a 13-year-old boy, whom I will identify for the purposes of this blog as ‘Joseph’, who has ADHD and learning difficulties, and who was walking home from school, when he was stopped by two Merseyside Police Officers in a patrol car.
Even on the Officers’ account, there was no suggestion that my young client was doing anything wrong other than “staring at the Police vehicle” as they passed him by.
Nevertheless, the Officers performed a u-turn and approached Joseph; a potentially intimidating event for any adult, let alone a young teen.
One of the Officers began to ask Joseph whether he was “distressed”; Joseph honestly told the Officer that he didn’t understand what he meant.
The Officer then exited the car, and confiscated a ‘vape’ cigarette from Joe, before searching his trouser pockets and school bag – without complying with any of the Code A PACE (Police & Criminal Evidence Act) requirements for a lawful search (see my blog post on GOWISELY for an explanation of the public’s rights and Police responsibilities in this regard).
I will add that the Police account is that they did not carry out a ‘stop and search’ on Joe – although they accept that they confiscated his e-cigarette and looked in his bag after he opened it for them.
Unfortunately, the Officers failed to leave this encounter there. Joe’s account is that the Officers continued to follow him in their car, and when he took out another e-cigarette from his jacket, the officers also confiscated that, causing Joe to become upset and shout at the Officers.
At this point, one of the Officers again exited the vehicle, and now arrested this 13-year-old boy under Section 5 of the Public Order Act (also confiscating Joe’s mobile phone in the process, which Joe had taken out in an attempt to record what was happening to him). This offence is defined as using threatening or abusive words or behaviour in the presence of a person likely be caused harassment, alarm or distress.
Both Officers involved were equipped with body worn video cameras, but failed to activate them even when they were evidently contemplating arrest and then actually arresting this child.
Notably, Joe states that the arresting Officer immediately, and unnecessarily, handcuffed him, before forcing him into the Police car, with a threat to take him “to the cells”, whereas the Officers maintain that although they took Joe into their car, they did not handcuff him, until Joseph began “bouncing up and down in the rear of the vehicle” and “making verbal threats”.
Joe also maintains that one of the officers was pulling on the handcuffs in the car, causing him pain, which the Police deny.
In an apparent attempt to justify the Officers’ use of handcuffs, Merseyside Police PSD asserted that-
“Constable S_____ recalls your client to be the most abusive and possibly the most aggressive person [he has] encountered in the 14 years of his front line service in the Police…”
I will pause here to observe that this description of “the most aggressive person I’ve ever encountered…” is something of a stock-phrase in Police Officer statements – leaving the impression that the Officer has only just been redeployed from Camberwick Green to the inner-city in each case – but I have never before seen it applied to such a young child.
The officers then called Joe’s Mum – I presume by having accessed her number from the phone they had confiscated from Joe – and drove him back home, where Joe’s Mum was understandably shocked and upset to see her young son in handcuffs.
As stated above, neither Officer had activated their body worn camera when-
- first approaching Joe;
- nor during the period when they alleged that he was committing a criminal “Public Order” offence;
- nor when they were arresting him;
- nor when they were handcuffing him.
However, one of the Officers did choose to activate his BWV when Joe’s mother became ‘agitated’ on seeing her son being held captive in handcuffs by the Officers.
Joe now began to suffer an asthma attack and had to be provided with his inhaler by his step-father, whilst he was still detained in the rear of the Police vehicle in handcuffs, and only after this were those handcuffs removed and Joe was returned to his mother’s care.
In rejecting the complaint which I subsequently raised on behalf of Joseph in regards to this incident, Merseyside Police PSD seemed very happy to have the deliberately limited footage which the Officers had recorded as (in their words) it “captured both your client and mother’s abusive behaviour and it has captured events that occurred outside your client’s property”. At the same time, they are completely blasé to the absence of any earlier video record of this incident.
Needless to say, I do not intend to let matters rest there, and I am currently advising Joe and his Mum about a complaint appeal and claim for damages.
Who Watches The Watchmen?
Merseyside Force Policy in regards to activation of body worn video cameras states as follows:-
Body worn video (BWV) is a body camera worn by Police Officers and deployed by Officers at their own discretion. However, policy stipulates BWV must be deployed in the following circumstances;
- Domestic and hate crime incidents.
- In private dwellings.
- Stop search.
- Crime and traffic scene.
- Public Order.
- Police pursuit.
- Using Police search powers.
- Method of entry.
Frankly, this policy does not appear to be worth the paper it is written upon. For a start – this was (allegedly) a ‘public order’ incident and, arguably, a stop and search, and yet PSD have offered no criticism of their Officers’ failure to record anything other than the very end of the incident (when it suited their purposes to do so).
A great deal, if not all, of the factual disputes between Joseph and the Police – whether or not he was searched in breach of PACE, whether or not his behaviour justified arrest, and at what point he was handcuffed – would not be open for debate if only the Officers had turned on their cameras, and it beggars belief that Merseyside Police seem content to allow their Officers ‘discretion’ on this issue, in situations where the Officers are interrogating and then forcefully arresting a child.
At this juncture, I am caused to also think of the case of my client John Kennedy – not a child, but certainly a vulnerable individual who was experiencing a mental health crisis – and who had to go through a five year legal battle, culminating in a victory at Court in the Summer of 2022 and damages of £50,000 – to prove that a Police Officer who had come to his house to perform a welfare check upon him, had in fact assaulted him and viciously broken his arm. The Officers attending at John’s house that night had also exercised their ‘discretion’ not to activate their cameras, and we might well wonder what the result would have been if they had been compelled to switch their cameras on: a much shorter legal case, or even, perhaps, no injury caused at all – for no doubt some Officers think twice about their use of force when that little box with its red light, is switched on upon their chests, like an electronic conscience?
The cynical – or perhaps merely the experienced – amongst us might comment that the absence of a video record of ‘conflict encounters’ between the Police and the public all too often leaves Officers with the temptation to ‘massage’ the facts of what happened in their own favour; or indeed, for the most unscrupulous Officers, a blank canvass on which to paint a totally false version of events, in an attempt to frame an innocent party.
My firm view is that it is well beyond time for the Police to mandate that their Officers activate their cameras in all situations in which they are exercising Police powers, and especially as soon as they start to contemplate use of force or arrest. To do so, would clearly be in the interests of transparency, accountability and safety for all – as well as restraining Police abuse of power and helping to root out abusive Officers. Any wilful failure to activate cameras in such circumstances should, in my opinion, constitute a punishable act of misconduct in itself, regardless of whether any other misdemeanours are proved to have occurred.
And the reason for this, is that we have ample evidence that the Police cannot be trusted to turn their cameras on when they should. In answer to the age-old question of “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” – who watches the watchmen – we have an answer which the Romans did not: their own body cameras.
But only when they turn them on, is Policing conducted in the full light of day.
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