Policing the night- time economy, as it is phrased in modern jargon, is a common task for today’s ‘beat cop’. The job of such Police patrols is, understandably, to help maintain law and order at times and places which can become fraught and a dangerous given the alcohol on which much of that economy is based.
The Police therefore do play a crucial role in keeping our city centres safe and allowing the vast majority of revellers to stay safe and have fun. But that does not mean that the Police can be excused when it is their Officers who turn out to be the dangers to the drinkers rather than the other way around.
In June 2022 my client Owen Andrews travelled to Liverpool for a night out with four friends, only to have their night ended by Police brutality. The recent settlement of his claim was prominently featured by the BBC’s Jonny Humphries in this recent news report, and I can provide further details about the case here.
Owen and his friends arrived in Liverpool early evening, checked in at a local hotel and then went out about 10pm/11pm, visiting a succession of bars before going to a ‘Subway’ restaurant to purchase food.
At approximately 3.45am Owen and his friends were making their way back through the city centre to their hotel, when Owen became aware that a Police van had stopped and was talking to one of his friends (who had been walking behind Owen).
Several uniformed Officers then alighted from the van and seeing them engaging with his friend, Owen approached and began to record events on his mobile phone. This was a perfectly legitimate activity for Owen to be performing, as I have previously made clear. Without mobile phone footage, many modern episodes of Police misconduct would have gone unevidenced and unproven.
Owen was told to keep back by a female Officer. He protested that his friend done nothing wrong and walked around the female Officer, whilst remaining several feet away from where his friend was being dealt with by the other Officers.
Another Officer, now known to be Special Constable Gillon, instructed Owen to move back, but then, before Owen had had an opportunity to do so, the Officer then physically pushed Owen backwards saying, “Move away”.
Although Owen stepped backwards, SC Gillon now grabbed hold of my client by the neck of his shirt and forcibly took him to the ground, whereupon Owen felt Officers delivering multiple strikes and blows to his body.
Whilst my client had been drinking, he had in no way been behaving in a disorderly manner. Not for the first time I am caused to reflect on how often the two elements of that offence – “drunk and disorderly behaviour” – have been artificially brought together by two separate parties – a civilian who has been drinking, set upon by disorderly Officers.
Whilst Owen was lying on his back on the ground, in a helpless, prone position, offering no resistance, SC Gillon, standing over Owen, deliberately sprayed him directly in the face with PAVA incapacitant gas. Owen immediately experienced pain and discomfort, he struggled to breathe, and his eyes became swollen. My client’s discomfort was made all the worse by the fact that he suffers from asthma.
Owen was then handcuffed, brought to his feet and – lo and behold – informed that he was under arrest for being “drunk and disorderly”.
Owen was then locked in the caged section at the back of the Police van. He tried to spit the foul taste of the PAVA spray out of his mouth, but was warned by the Officers that if he did so that he could be arrested for criminal damage. This, I am afraid is a common move from the ‘policing the night time economy’ playbook: Officers doubling down on an initial wrongful arrest by further arresting a person for causing ‘criminal damage’ to Police property which they are drooling, vomiting or bleeding upon precisely because of the violence which the Police have just meted out to them.
Owen was then driven to the Wirral Custody Suite.
The circumstances of Owen’s arrest were recorded in the Custody Record as follows –
“DP [Detained Person] and another group of males approached police vehicle and became abusive to officers, shouting and swearing in front of other MOPs [Members of the Public]. DP was warned about his behaviour but persisted, officers were trying to deal with another male but the DP placed himself in between them, AO [Arresting Officer] attempted to move the DP, he became obstructive and resistant, pushing, pulling, resisting and lashing out in officers direction… He was arrested D&D. Taken to the floor, actively resisting, put hands in waistband, refused to remove it. He was warned PAVA was to be deployed if he did not move his hands, AO feared he was reaching for a weapon, unable to gain proper control. PAVA deployed. Effective, cuffed to rear non-compliant. Further arrested obstruct. No reply. After-care provided at scene and on arrival in custody.”
Such was the extent of his injuries, Owen had to be assessed by a Healthcare Professional whilst in Custody, after which he was subjected to the degrading process of being fingerprinted and having a sample of his DNA taken, before being interviewed under caution, where he took the opportunity to deny all wrongdoing.
Eventually, almost 11 hours after his arrest, Owen was informed that he was not going to face any charges and was released from custody on the basis of “No further action”.
Special Treatment?
It soon became apparent that the Merseyside Police Officers reviewing the evidence in this case had not been happy with what they saw in regards to Special Constable Gillon’s behaviour, as evidenced by the body camera footage, and not only had this led them to release Owen without charge – the matter was now referred to the Professional Standards Department (PSD) and the Officer was prosecuted for common assault upon my client.
I believe that Special Constable Gillon should have been convicted; but as is often the case his Police status seems to have disposed the criminal court to look favourably upon him and, in effect, hold him to a different standard of account than members of the public. In August 2023 at Manchester Magistrates Court, Gillon was found not guilty of assaulting Owen, with the Judge criticising Owen’s “attitude towards authority”, drawing “no adverse inferences” from the fact that SC Gillon had chosen to exercise his ‘right to silence’ in interview and going as far as to praise the Officer’s “reasonable and proportionate” use of force as being in accordance with his training. Owen was blamed for “encroaching” on the Officers, when all he had actually been doing was to exercise his right to film them.
In this way, what begins as a criminal trial of the Officer often seems to ‘flip’ into a trial of the victim, and end with the kind of judicial address which might accompany a “decoration for valour.”
Owen was understandably demoralised by this outcome and assumed that it was now ‘game over’ for his chances of seeing justice done. However, I was able to reassure him that this was not the case: with the criminal process out of the way, I was able to take charge of the situation and to take steps to hold Merseyside Police to account for the Officer’s actions by means of a civil claim for compensation.
Police Accountability
The resolution of the criminal proceedings against Special Constable Gillon, had also cleared the way for Merseyside PSD to conclude their own investigation into matters of professional misconduct arising from this incident. Regrettably, but perhaps unsurprisingly, a 16 page investigation report by PSD concluded that SC Gillon had ‘no case to answer’ in respect of use of excessive force against Owen and furthermore that his decision to arrest Owen was entirely lawful.
SC Gillon had sought to justify the level of force he used against Owen on the basis that as the struggle began – initiated in the first place by the Officer of course – he feared that Owen might have a knife secreted in the waistband of his trousers. It was notable, however, that he based this assertion simply on unspecified ‘previous experience’ rather than anything that Owen or his companions had done or been seen to do. In my view, this was a retrospective excuse: the Officer was fixated on my client’s phone, not on a phantom blade.
Notwithstanding the fact that Merseyside Police Legal Services, in responding to the letter of claim which I had now sent on behalf of Owen, purported to endorse their Officer’s version of events and his justification of his use of force, they now admitted liability for false imprisonment and assault and battery.
In addition to an admission of liability, I also secured for Owen the following letter of apology from the Force –
“On behalf of Merseyside Police, I apologise to you for your treatment at the hands of Officers of the Force on the evening of 11 June 2022.
You will appreciate that a full admission of liability in relation to your claims for false imprisonment and assault has been made and that in this instance the Force did investigate your complaint against Police which resulted in a prosecution of a serving Police Special Constable.
Once again, I apologise on behalf of the Chief Constable for the actions of the Officers of Merseyside Police”.
This of course was only part of Owen’s victory, albeit a very important part. I also sought on behalf of Owen damages for loss of liberty, physical and psychological injuries and other losses including damage caused to his clothing, and I commissioned expert medical reports in support of Owen’s injury claims. After rejecting Merseyside Police’s initial offer of settlement of only £8,000, I went on to secure a final settlement for Owen of £22,375 damages plus legal costs.
Once again, I am caused to reflect on the fact that there is a three- pronged ‘trident’ of legal remedies with which the victim of Police brutality or misconduct can seek restitution/justice. Unfortunately, two of the points of that trident often prove to be blunt and/or useless i.e. criminal proceedings for assault against the Officer concerned and internal Police misconduct investigations. Thankfully, the third point of the trident remains sharp – the right to sue in the civil courts for damages and the very real opportunity to secure not only a sense of empowerment and accountability through legal action, but also an apology for the wronged individual, which such a claim brings with it.
And I fully intend, through my actions on behalf of my clients and the publicity which I bring to such issues in this blog, to keep it that way.
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