News broke last week that a Metropolitan Police Officer is under criminal investigation for assault after ‘Sex Education’ actor Reece Richards claimed he had been unlawfully arrested in an incident in September.
Richards’ account is that he was walking back home through the streets of London, after having appeared in the West End Musical Hairspray when he encountered a very different type of treatment – Police ‘pepper’ spray.
Richards, who has also appeared on the Netflix show ‘You’, posted an account of the incident on Instagram.
“I had just finished performing in Hairspray the Musical when a car crashed near me. Two men, one white and one Asian jumped out; one started running in one direction, and the other ran towards me where I stood with my suitcase.
Realising the Police were chasing them, I shouted “He ran down there Officer” and pointed out the direction they fled.
Despite hearing me, the Officer shouted that I was under arrest and demanded I get on the ground. I was confused, unable to understand why I was suddenly being treated like a criminal.
Calmly I explained that I was a performer returning from a show, but one Officer yelled “Get to the floor or I will pepper spray you””.
Richards claims that the Officers then rushed him, pepper sprayed him (he is probably referring to the use of PAVA incapacitant gas), kicked his legs out from under him, threw him to the ground and handcuffed him.
Thankfully there was a witness to what was occurring – Richards’ mother – who was able to call for help from the director of Hairspray, the “Loose Women” star Brenda Edwards, who attended at the scene, and helped diffuse the situation with Richards being released shortly afterwards.
Richards summed up this very traumatic incident as follows –
“The whole experience was embarrassing, deeply upsetting, and exhausting. It has left me questioning everything I thought I knew about justice. Suddenly my understanding of right and wrong feels completely upended”.
I can deeply sympathise with how he feels. I have represented many clients who have had experiences like this at the hands of hot-headed Officers who ‘rush in where angels fear to tread’ – assaulting or arresting people who are not only innocent, but who were actually trying to help them. Read my recent blog about the case of my client Scott Barratt, kicked in the head by a Police Officer in very similar circumstances, here.
Police Officers who commit brazen, brutal mistakes of the kind perpetrated against my client – and also against Richards if his account is correct – must be held to account in order to maintain the public’s and to restore their victim’s faith in our justice system.
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