Often in today’s data- rich world, human errors can lead to ‘mistaken identity’ arrests – arrests which demonstrate that the vast volume of modern information can prove to be a hinderance to law enforcement – unless it is applied with some good old-fashioned common sense…
In autumn 2019 my client Xavier, a professional musician, had been working on a video shoot in Spain. He flew back from Malaga to Stanstead Airport in the UK, accompanied by his girlfriend, his manager, and several other people who had been on the video shoot.
Unfortunately, on the plane’s touchdown at Stanstead Airport, my client’s life was turned upside down. Several Officers of Essex Police boarded the plane and shouted Xavier’s name. When Xavier stood up and identified himself, the Officers told him he was under arrest, handcuffed and escorted him from the plane. Xavier was devastated and deeply humiliated – feeling the eyes upon him of not only all the strangers on that plane but his girlfriend, manager and work colleagues. Xavier could only imagine that they were thinking the worst.
No reason had been given to Xavier by the Officers for his arrest (which I will pause to observe was, in itself, a breach of Section 28 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act sufficient to have rendered the arrest unlawful) and this continued throughout his journey from the airport into Police Custody.
It was only when Xavier arrived at the Police Station that he was informed that he was under arrest in respect of warrants issued for a failure to attend the Magistrates Court and in respect of breaching previous Court Orders and a Community Order. The person identified in these warrants, however, was not Xavier but another individual with a completely different first name and surname, whom I will refer to for the purposes of this blog as Gabriel. Xavier was not familiar with this person and had no idea as to why he had apparently been mistaken for him.
This was despite the fact that Xavier was, of course, in possession of the best form of identity verification possible i.e. his passport, as he had been engaged in international travel.
Having been arrested on a Saturday night, Xavier was then kept in Custody until Monday morning when he was transported in handcuffs to Bromley Magistrates Court where he spent a miserable 8 hours or so, before being released after the Duty Solicitor who had attended upon him persuaded the Court that Xavier was not the ‘wanted man’ Gabriel – the Solicitor had seen a photographic image of Gabriel (who was clearly not Xavier) and furthermore was able to point out the difference in their dates of birth.
When I presented a claim for wrongful arrest on behalf of Xavier to Essex Police, their lawyers initially disputed liability stating that the warrants for the arrest of Gabriel had been legitimately issued by the Magistrates Court and then circulated on the Police National Computer system (PNC) by the Metropolitan Police, and furthermore that Xavier’s name was linked to Gabriel’s profile on the PNC as an ‘alias’ of the wanted man. It was said that this ‘alias’ information had been added to the PNC by Cambridgeshire Police in 2016 following a previous arrest of Gabriel.
In the circumstances, it was necessary for me to present letters of claim on behalf of Xavier to Cambridgeshire Police and the Metropolitan Police, both of whom maintained that they had no responsibility for linking Xavier’s PNC record to Gabriel’s PNC record. They pointed the finger of blame back at Essex Police.
In the meantime, I had obtained expert evidence from a psychologist to assess the anxiety, depression and trauma which Xavier had suffered as a result of his very public and humiliating arrest and I commenced Court proceedings on behalf of Xavier in order to protect his position to bring a claim for breach of the Human Rights Act.
After thoroughly investigating the involvement of the multiple Police Forces referred to above, the Magistrates Court and the UK Border Force (a non- Police, Law Enforcement Command within the Home Office) I was able to establish that there was no legitimate basis for Essex Police to have believed that my client was the wanted man Gabriel, that they therefore had no power to arrest him under the warrant, and hence they were liable for his wrongful arrest.
In October 2021 settlement terms were reached with Essex Police whereby they agreed to pay Xavier £17,500 damages for deprivation of liberty and the psychological trauma of the arrest, plus his legal costs.
That, however, was not the end of this story.
PNC Profiling Problems
One of the virtues that I pride myself in is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to investigating/fighting my client’s cases.
I considered the evidence which had been uncovered during my successful pursuit of Essex Police for damages relating to Xavier’s unlawful arrest at Stanstead Airport in 2019, as related above.
Although Essex Police were ultimately unable to avoid carrying the can for that arrest, I was intrigued by the suggestion that Cambridgeshire Police had potentially sown the seeds of future trouble for Xavier by recording his name as an ‘alias’ of the career criminal Gabriel.
In discussing past events with Xavier, I had discovered that my client had been arrested by the Metropolitan Police in the Spring of 2016. At the time, he had not done anything about this, but I now encouraged him to pursue the matter further, suspecting that this arrest was a result of incorrect links on the Police National Computer system between him and Gabriel.
The documentation which I had seen indicated that Cambridgeshire Police Officers had entered Xavier’s name onto Gabriel’s PNC record as an ‘alias’, in around mid-February 2016, and had then gone on to place a ‘wanted/missing’ marker on Xavier’s PNC profile in mid-March 2016, indicating that Xavier (not Gabriel) was wanted for arrest for intent to supply Class A drugs in Cambridgeshire. Basically, whoever had done this was treating Xavier and Gabriel as if they were the same person – with two different PNC records – when clearly they were not. ‘Aliases’ are one of the oldest tricks in the criminal’s book, and it is baffling, and concerning, that Police Officers could so easily fall into the trap of ‘contaminating’ an innocent person’s profile with the crimes of a separate individual like this.
As a result of this mistake, on 15 March 2016, whilst parked in his motor car in the area of Croydon, Xavier was arrested by two Metropolitan Police Officers who, having run an ID check on him (after asking to see his licence), were informed over their radios that Xavier was “Wanted for conspiracy to sell Class A drugs”. Accordingly, he was arrested, handcuffed and taken into Custody at Croydon Police Station.
Xavier was subsequently released on Police bail and told to report to Cambridge Police Station in April 2016. When he did so, Xavier was informed that no further action was to be taken against him – notwithstanding this, however, we now know that Cambridgeshire Police then doubled down on the mistaken misidentification of Xavier and Gabriel by adding Xavier’s date of birth to Gabriel’s PNC profile.
Then, in June 2016, an event which was significant in all of our lives took place; the Brexit Referendum and the UK’s vote to leave the European Union – but which was all the more significant for Xavier as he was a Dutch National living in the UK. He therefore subsequently had to apply for Leave to Remain under the EU Settlement Scheme.
In December 2019 the Home Office wrote to Xavier, informing him that his application for Leave to Remain could not be progressed due to “ongoing criminal investigations”. We now know that this related not to anything that Xavier was suspected to have done, but to the erroneous ‘ghost in the machine’ connection between Xavier and Gabriel’s PNC profiles, which appeared to have originated with Cambridgeshire Police’s mistaken data entry of March 2016 (posting Gabriel’s wanted marker on Xavier’s profile) – kickstarting the series of arrests that I describe above, and which apparently suggested to the Home Office that Xavier should be considered a Persona Non Grata.
I am pleased to confirm that in October 2020 the Metropolitan Police directed Cambridgeshire Police to expunge Xavier’s name and date of birth from Gabriel’s PNC record.
But very real damage had already been done as a result of this ‘virtual’ mistake.
Although this error originating with Cambridgeshire Police – treating Xavier’s real identity as if it were just a mask or alias of the career criminal Gabriel – did not result in any more actual arrests after those of March 2016 and November 2019, it continued to indirectly affect Xavier’s life in numerous ways. He became wary of the Police and felt like he was constantly ‘looking over his shoulder’. He got into the habit of carrying his passport and official Court documentation around with him in order to be able to explain this misidentification if another incident occurred and in particular felt scared of international travel knowing that the airport/border was the place where this type of electronic mistaken identity was most likely to affect him.
On behalf of Xavier, I pursued Court proceedings against Cambridgeshire Police for breaches of the Data Protection Act and have recently recovered £35,000 damages for him, plus legal costs.
This makes a grand total of £52,500 damages which I have won for my client against the two Police Forces who through their errors of their own making – which could have been easily avoided with a bit of human brain power, rather than a rote-response to PNC data – had so badly affected his life over a period of 8 years.
Let this be a lesson to them: With Great Data Resources Comes Great Data Responsibility!
Names have been changed for the purposes of this blog (…but not confused).
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