I have blogged on numerous occasions about wrongful arrests which have occurred as a result of mistakes made by the Electronic Monitoring Service (EMS) – otherwise known as the ‘Electronic Mistake Service’. I have represented many people who have been unfairly deprived of their liberty whilst under the electronic ‘surveillance’ of an ankle tag, despite fully complying with the terms of their licence or bail conditions. However, I have not previously represented a client whose arrest occurred in quite such farcical circumstances as those which feature in this week’s blog – and with the farce being supplied not by EMS themselves, but by the Police.
My client Anthony was on Court bail, subject to a condition not to return to the apartment block where he lived (as the incident involved a dispute with one of his neighbours). This condition was monitored by an Electronic GPS ankle tag, operated by EMS.
Some electronic tags are designed to enforce a timed curfew – and an alert will be triggered by EMS if they detect that the subject has been outside of his home address after a certain time in the evening. In Anthony’s case he had no such daily curfew, but what is known as ‘GPS Zone Conditions’ i.e forbidding him from entering a defined geographical area known as the ‘exclusion zone’. In Anthony’s case, the exclusion zone was around his apartment block. As a result, Anthony took up residence at his parent’s address. However, his bail conditions did permit him to return to his flat, if he was, by prior arrangement, in the company of Police Officers.
In due course, Anthony did indeed attend his flat in the company of Police Officers in order to collect some of his possessions. Everything passed off normally/ peacefully.
A few weeks later, Anthony was minding his own business at his parent’s house, making a cup of tea for a builder, when Police Officers stormed into the house, took hold of his arms and forced him onto the ground, striking him in the back in the process, and then tightly handcuffing him to the rear.
The Officers then informed Anthony that he was under arrest for breaching his bail conditions. Anthony was stunned and did not know what they were talking about – a situation not helped by the fact that the Officers initially told him the wrong date for the alleged breach of bail. Furthermore, during the course of the arrest, one of the Officers had pressed his ‘panic’ button, causing further Officers in marked Police vehicles to come racing to Anthony’s parents’ address, adding further to his distress and embarrassment.
Anthony was conveyed to a local Police Station, and on being produced before the Custody desk was informed that the correct date of his alleged breach of bail was – you’ve guessed it – the very day he had attended his flat with a Police escort as described above. Anthony made strenuous representations to this effect and the Custody record was subsequently updated with the following entry –
DP [Detained Person] was brought into custody following a reported EMS bail breach as documented by EMS.
DP explains that the time and dates given he was escorted to the property by police for purposes of facilitating a Prevent Breach of the Peace [PBOTP]. A check of Storm [Police computer logs] confirms that this is the case; the DP has requested PBOTP to collect belongings and disclosed his conditions to officers a the time, officers have booked and facilitated a PBOTP at the address on those occasions. Storm incidents…confirm. This is allowed by his conditions. Detention is therefore not authorised.
I have contacted EMS to advise them of this.
Shortly thereafter, Anthony was released and conveyed back to his parent’s house by Officers.
That may have been the end of the incident as far as the Police were concerned, but it wasn’t from Anthony’s point of view: he later had to attend A&E in regards to the injuries sustained to his back, arms and wrists during his arrest, and the psychological impact of the incident persisted even longer – for during the following months, whilst Anthony remained under the same bail conditions, he was frequently on edge, anxious and fearful that the same ‘bolts from out of the blue’ might fall on him again, no matter how compliant he was with his conditions.
Indeed, I have recently blogged about the deeply unsettling effect which a wrongful arrest caused by Police incompetence or malice can have upon a person’s mind, persisting long after their liberty is restored.
My subsequent enquiries on Anthony’s behalf established that the fault here did indeed lie with the Police and not the Electronic Monitoring Service. Anthony had done everything right in securing the agreement of the Police to attend his previous home address, and only going there at the arranged time with a Police escort – but the Police had nevertheless made him a victim of what can only be described as their ‘doubly whammy’ negligence. Firstly, they had failed to notify EMS that they would be escorting Anthony to the premises on the day in question and then secondly, when EMS had issued the subsequent ‘breach’ alert, the Police had failed to correlate the date and check whether it was actually a breach before sending a squad of Officers to seize my client – a check which evidently took the Custody Sergeant only a matter of minutes to perform when prompted.
Despite the fact that Anthony’s detention lasted for only 50 minutes, I am pleased to confirm that I have recently been able to settle his claim for the sum of £5,000 damages plus legal costs, to properly reflect the distress, aggravation and embarrassment inflicted upon him by this regrettable incident.
The circumstances were indeed farcical, but it was no laughing matter. Technology should be used to aid human brain cells – not to lazily bypass them.
My client’s name has been changed.
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