As we approach again the time of the year at which more people take flights abroad than any other, I thought it was worthwhile revisiting, by reference to one of my recent cases, the issue of wrongful arrests at the airport, and what can be done about them.
In March 2019 my client Jamie travelled to Gatwick airport, intending to fly to Vietnam.
However, as he attempted to board his flight, he was stopped by Officers of Surrey Police who informed him that he had been circulated as ‘wanted’ for an offence of criminal damage, on the Police National Computer (PNC). Jamie’s protests that he knew nothing about this were ignored and instead of his holiday to Asia, he was dragged off into the nightmarish ‘long haul’ of Police Custody.
After several hours in the custody of Surrey Police, Jamie was informed that he was to be transferred into the hands of the Metropolitan Police, as it was they who had circulated his ‘wanted’ notice on the PNC.
In the early hours of the following day, therefore, Jamie was brought to Bethnal Green Police Station in London where he was searched, processed and placed into a cell; and there he spent the night, in an understandably miserable condition.
Jamie was entirely innocent of the offence for which he had been arrested. At 10.49am the following morning, his Custody Record was updated with the following entry –
Disposal
Criminal damage to property valued under £5000 – Disposal at 10:43 04/03/2019 – No Further Action NFA – Detective Constable has established that DP [DETAINED PERSON] is not responsible for the criminal damage, it was his cousin [NAME REDACTED – BUT ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TO MY CLIENTS] (Photo shown to victim who confirmed this) , DP created this problem by giving his cousin’s details … when he was last arrested, this led to him being arrested on this occasion. NFA authorised by Detective Sergeant …
A subsequent entry made a few minutes later on the Custody Record stated “Police Sergeant has checked PNC…DP no longer shown as wanted on PNC for this matter”.
Jamie was then released from Custody, feeling relieved but also aggrieved. Having missed his original flight, he then had to make alternative arrangements; fortunately, he was able to travel to Vietnam without further incident the following day, albeit at considerably increased expense.
The reference to Jamie having previously given his cousin’s details as his own was a very old one – dating back to an incident almost twenty years earlier, in 2002. This fact alone could never have justified Jamie’s arrest; had elementary investigative steps been taken it would have been easy for the Police to establish that Jamie was not the same person as his cousin, prior to the draconian step of an ‘airport ambush’ arrest being carried out. Identity checks at airports are amongst the most stringent in the world; no one is able to board an international flight on the basis of an ‘alias’, unless we are straying into the realms of international espionage…
You Only Fly Twice
Sadly, this was not the end of the matter for my client. A lot of people who have experienced an unlawful arrest at the hands of the Police develop a natural fear that it will happen again – in most cases, thankfully, that does not transpire; but when a ‘ghost in the system’ i.e. a mistaken identity or wrongful linking of an innocent person’s records with those of a criminal suspect /recurrent offender has occurred – then the same problem can return to haunt the innocent party again, usually as a result of negligent Police record keeping.
Conscious of this, Jamie did everything that was realistically possible to help both himself and the Police avoid the same trap on a future occasion when he was due to travel abroad – regretfully, all to no avail. Sometimes, common sense just can’t penetrate the sclerotic bureaucracy that surrounds and the school-boy sloppiness which permeates Policing practices, even in this electronic age.
In November 2021, two officers from the Met attended Jamie’s address, looking for his cousin. Jamie explained who he was, and that his cousin did not live here – and the officers accepted this and left. This further incident was weighing on Jamie’s mind, however, as the date of his next flight abroad approached, in January 2022. The day before his flight, therefore, Jamie attended Bethnal Green Police station, produced his driving licence to verify his identity and spoke to an officer who established that there had been a ‘wanted’ marker placed against Jamie’s name, which would have led to his being arrested at the departure gate the next day – but who assured him that this had now been removed from the PNC.
The following day, Jamie attended Heathrow airport with several members of his family where, lo and behold, he was intercepted by no fewer than four Metropolitan Officers and arrested – once again owing to the assumption that he was his cousin, despite Jamie having done all he could the previous day to correct that mistake (and having been reassured that it was corrected). Jamie was bitterly upset by reason of this, and all the more distressed and embarrassed because on this occasion, his arrest took place in front of his teenage son and young nephew and niece.
Jamie even managed to get his uncle on the phone – who confirmed to the officers that Jamie was not his son (the man they were actually looking for), but all to no avail.
Jamie was then transported back to Bethnal Green Police Station – where of course he had been only 24 hours previously, precisely to try and prevent this disaster occurring. On being produced before the custody desk, he made the same representations to the Sergeant, who stated that they and the arresting officers would “make enquiries”. Regardless of this, Jamie was processed, searched, obliged to provide his fingerprints and DNA, and then locked in a cell.
After some time, officers entered the Jamie’s cell and informed him that they had corroborated his account. My client was then released and transported back to Heathrow airport, but due to the arrest he had long- missed his flight. In all, the incident caused Jamie significant anxiety and psychological distress.
Having received instructions from Jamie to act on his behalf in relation to this matter, I advised him to pursue claims against the Metropolitan Police for both of these incidents, seeking separate damages for his wrongful arrest in 2019 and in 2022.
It was established that the first incident (in 2019) had occurred as a result of a Police Constable ‘confusing’ the two PNC profiles, not realising that my client and his cousin were not ‘the same person’, and then circulating an arrest request which used Jamie’s cousin’s name with Jamie’s PNC ID number. The Met accepted that the officer was at fault for not carrying out a “more thorough check” and would receive management intervention, known as “reflective practice” in order to “to learn from this incident”.
In regards to the second incident (2022), it transpired that following the Police attendance at Jamie’s home in November 2021, one of the Officers involved had committed exactly the same error as his colleague two years previously – circulating my client’s PNC ID rather than his cousins, and not conducting thorough- enough enquiries to ensure the details were correct. To compound matters, although the ‘wanted marker’ had been removed from Jamie’s PNC profile after his attendance at the station the day before his January 2022 flight, the officers who came to arrest him had not re-checked the PNC before doing so, and furthermore failed to conduct a new check at the scene, despite the urgent appeals that they do so from Jamie and his family.
In my opinion, it was particularly egregious that following the identification of the correct suspect and Jamie’s release from Custody in March 2019, the Metropolitan Police had failed to appropriately mark both Jamie’s and his cousin’s PNC profiles to ensure that a similar incident did not occur in the future – which of course it did in January 2022 – causing my client stress, disruption and loss of liberty and wasting the Police’s own time and resources.
Following an extended investigation period, the Met made an offer of £4,500 in total settlement of both claims brought by my client i.e. his arrest in March 2019 and his arrest in January 2022.
I considered this to be a significant undervaluation of one of those claims alone, let alone both and had no hesitation in advising Jamie to reject the same and to proceed with his claim.
I was subsequently able to negotiate settlement of Jamie’s first claim for damages in the sum of £7,500and £11,000 in settlement of the second claim, i.e a total of £18,500 damages, plus legal costs.
That will pay for a lot of air miles; but I am sure my client will settle for this miscarriage of justice never happening to him again. Let us hope that the level of damages that has been achieved has caused the Met to “reflect” all the more deeply on how well their officers are trained in what should be routine tasks of research and identification, using the vast resources of the PNC, and given the very serious consequences of simple mistakes.
My client’s name has been changed.
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