This is a continuation of the story of my client Zac, a black man battered and subjected to an unlawful strip search by the Metropolitan Police, which I began last week.
Trials and tribulations
Zac was originally represented by another firm of solicitors who advised him, in 2014, to issue Court proceedings (so as to protect his position – as his injury claims would be subject to the three-year limitation period) but thereafter to stay the proceedings pending the outcome of the complaint process. Unbeknownst to all involved at the time, that complaint process still had almost another four years to run.
Dissatisfied with the representation he had received to that point, Zac instructed me to act on his behalf from February 2017. I submitted a detailed letter of claim on Zac’s behalf to the Metropolitan Police but they initially ‘ducked’ out of responding to it by hiding behind the ongoing complaint process.
The Met finally responded to my letter of claim in March 2018, denying liability for Zac’s claims in their entirety.
In response I drafted the appropriate statements of case and Court proceedings were served upon the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis in May 2018.
Initially, the Met strenuously defended these legal proceedings, submitting a Defence in June 2018 and statements from the three key Officers in support of that Defence.
Having experienced Police brutality on the day of the incident Zac, now had to undergo a ‘character assassination’ in the pleadings of the Defence, in which his honesty was attacked and he was portrayed as aggressive and hostile.
Each time the Police denied and disputed his complaint or claim, Zac understandably felt that he was being re-traumatised. It played on his mind not only that PC Waddington and PC Munich had simply stood back and watched as he was placed in a chokehold and taken to the ground – but that they had also, ever since then, stood by their colleague and, to Zac’s mind, tried to conceal the truth. He was haunted by thoughts that had he died that day as a result of the pressure applied to his neck and chest, there would have been no independent evidence, and his family would have been “fed lies” about what had really happened.
Zac felt that his mental wounds from the incident had never been allowed to heal because of the Police ‘System’ fighting him tooth and nail through every step of the complaint and claim process.
As a result, what Zac was most focused on was the Police accepting fault and properly admitting liability – proving to the world their Officer’s wrongdoing in violently attacking, detaining and then strip searching him. This was so much more important to him than anything else, that he declined a significant offer of monetary compensation that was made by the Met on a ‘without prejudice’ basis (i.e a financial settlement without an admission of liability) in October 2018.
The determination of myself and my client was seemingly rewarded when, in late September 2019, the Met Police finally admitted liability for Zac’s claim in the following terms, leaving the case to proceed to Trial on the issue of assessment of damages –
“The Commissioner admits that the Claimant’s searches, both at the scene and at the Police Station and detention for those purposes, were unlawful. As a consequence, it is admitted that Police actions at the time would be found to be unlawful.”
In due course, however, the Met’s admission would prove to have more of the character of a tactical manoeuvre about it, than of contrition born of an honest acceptance of the justice of Zac’s case.
It became increasingly clear that the Police had accepted liability only because of what they would argue was a ‘technicality’ – PC Bullock’s failure to comply with the procedures prescribed by Code A of PACE when conducting the stop and search – rather than any admission as to the fundamental truth of Zac’s case on the issues of PC Bullock’s motivation for conducting the search and the totally disproportionate nature of the force that he used.
In due course, with Judgment entered for my client, but these fundamental issues still in dispute between the parties, the case went to Trial at Central London County Court in January 2020. Even now the manoeuvring and ‘game playing’ of the Metropolitan Police had not ended; on the second day of the Trial, during his cross examination of Zac, the Police barrister made an ‘apology’ to Zac on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, which was limited to PC Bullock’s failure to properly introduce himself and identify his Police Station before commencing the search, and which ‘apology’ was then used in further questions put to Zac by the barrister to seek to persuade him, in open Court in front of the Jury, to drop his claim for exemplary (i.e. punitive) damages against the Police on the basis that his claim would deprive the Met of money essential for carrying out their Policing functions.
In my opinion, this was a shameless and underhanded trick. The apology, sprung upon my client unannounced like an act from a ‘showpiece theatre’ performance, was entirely disingenuous. It was not intended to reflect genuine remorse on the part of the Police, nor to make my client feel better – it was used as a weapon by which Zac could then be attacked in front of the Jury and made to look like a ‘money grabber’ if he then didn’t agree the Defendant’s suggestion that he drop part of his claim – and all of this was done whilst he was in the witness box, giving evidence under oath and unable to directly communicate with or take advice from me, as his solicitor.
In my opinion, it was a discreditable stunt by the Met’s legal team – but they didn’t stop there.
At the end of the second day of the Trial, following almost two hours of cross examination of Zac, the Police Barrister made an application to introduce into evidence a Custody Record relating to a separate arrest which they had not previously disclosed.
This was, plainly and simply, a pre-meditated ambush of my client, in an attempt to discredit him in front of the Jury. It was in direct contravention of one of the most basic tenets of our Civil Court system, which is that each party must share with the other all of the documentary evidence upon which they intend to rely well in advance of the Trial, in the interest of allowing the other time to fairly consider and respond to the same, and furthermore in the interest of avoiding the time delay and costs incurred in going to Trial, by adopting what is called the ‘cards on the table’ approach.
The hypocrisy of the Police approach to Zac’s case at Trial almost beggared belief. They used an ‘apology’ as a back door way to attack Zac for (in effect) being a drain on public funds – when, in reality, the Police could have saved vast amounts of public money, Officers’ time, Zac’s time and the Court’s time by addressing his original 2012 complaint in a fair and contrite manner, over seven years previously.
Further adding salt to Zac’s wounds, it had been put to him by the Police barrister during cross examination that he was ‘irrational’ for believing that PC Bullock’s behaviour towards him was in any way motivated by racism – notwithstanding the absence of any good reason for the Officer to have stopped and searched him that day.
Indeed, the conduct of the Police legal team, and especially the barrister up to this point, was such that one member of the Jury was provoked to pass a note to the Judge querying whether the conduct of the Police barrister in his cross examination of Zac was, in itself, ‘potentially discriminatory’.
The contents of that note led the Police barrister to apply for the Jury to be discharged on the basis (he argued) that at least one of them was now prejudiced against him, and thereby the Jury could not be relied upon to provide an impartial decision on the facts. The Trial Judge, His Honour Judge Freeland QC approved this Application by the Defence and, effectively, declared a ‘mistrial’.
My client was therefore, once again, called upon to muster all his reserves of stoicism in the face of injustice and delay. After waiting over five years for the complaint process to resolve, and then going through a further two years of litigation to Trial, that Trial had now collapsed as a result of game playing by the Police lawyers, which further aggravated his suffering. What is more, shortly afterwards the first wave of the Covid pandemic hit our shores, sweeping away ‘social gatherings’ including Jury trials, and yet further prolonging Zac’s wait for justice.
The Defence mounted by the Met continued to deny the full extent of his injuries and belittle the seriousness of the force used upon him by PC Bullock – especially in terms of the chokehold.
A further statement was served on behalf of PC Bullock. Apology and admission or not, the Met continued to muster its battle lines in the face of Zac’s claim.
The Met’s conduct of its Defence, combined with the continued threat of Covid conjured up a ‘perfect storm’ of ongoing delay. Re-Trials listed to commence in March 2021 and then December 2021 were each in turn adjourned, and by November 2021 it was being projected that it would not be possible for the Trial to finally be heard until the Autumn of 2022, such was the systemic backlog of Jury trials across the country at that point.
It was in this context that, when the Met finally tabled an offer of £30,000 damages, plus legal costs – almost twice as much as their previous highest offer of settlement – Zac decided to take it. Matters were brought to a successful conclusion on the basis of a settlement order which I negotiated on Zac’s behalf in July 2022.
Thus did Zac’s long and winding battle for justice against the Met, after almost ten years, end in a notable victory.
In order to achieve this, Zac demonstrated great determination and perseverance – and a willingness to endure conduct by the Police and their lawyers which was not merely delaying and demoralising but which in itself added further scars to the wounds already inflicted; but in the end, all the more worth it for the sense of satisfaction and empowerment that he achieved.
Most paths to justice do not last anywhere near as long as Zac’s did, but this case is a salutary reminder of some of the demons which still haunt the Police and by extension, the victims of their misconduct; arrogance, hostility, pride, and prejudice.
Postscript
Although the Met may have ridiculed Zac’s suggestion that he was the victim of racial profiling in this incident – i.e an aggressive targeting for a search based not on reasonable grounds, but on the colour of his skin – I consider that the facts can be allowed to speak for themselves in terms of what has been described as the ‘institutional racism’ of the Policing profession. And I can call as a further witness to this, Zac himself who was the subject of a second baseless ‘drugs search’ and assault by yet more Metropolitan Officers, in very different circumstances in 2020 – whilst this first case was still ongoing – and as a result of which he won further damages of £7,500. You can read my blog post about that later case here. https://iaingould.co.uk/2023/11/13/you-smell-cannabis-i-smell-a-rat/
You can also read the Guardian Newspaper’s coverage of the settlement of Zac’s first case by clicking on the link.
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