BBC News reported last week on the case of former Lincolnshire Police Inspector Jonathan Mellor, who, whilst he was still an officer of senior rank, severely assaulted my client Shane Price in a ‘road-rage’ incident on the A46.
During the unprovoked assault, then-Inspector Mellor pushed and punched my client, and stamped upon his already injured foot, before forcing him down and pinning him on the ground. When police back-up units subsequently arrived, it was of course my client and not Inspector Mellor who was arrested. Fortunately, Shane’s then partner had captured the road-side assault on her mobile phone, allowing my client’s innocence to be vindicated.
At the Misconduct hearing, Mellor claimed to be the ‘victim’ in this matter but also bragged, in reference to his punching my client in the face – “If I’d have punched him with my full force I would have knocked him out.”
The Misconduct Panel found Mellor guilty of gross misconduct for his unjustified assault upon Shane and noted that the unrepentant ex-officer had “demonstrated inability to control himself” or to hold himself accountable for his wrongdoing. It was found that Mellor would have been dismissed from the Police service had he not already been allowed to retire.
This was not an outcome, however, for which Lincolnshire Police should take any credit. Although I will discuss the full circumstances of this case in a longer blog once Shane’s claim for damages is settled, I can reveal here that Lincolnshire Police Professional Standards Department decided that ex- Inspector Mellor had no case to answer for misconduct, despite PSD being in full possession of the shocking footage of the incident.
Even after viewing the footage – which shows in clear detail how Mellor was the aggressor, how he grabbed and pushed my client, how he punched Shane without warning in the face, and stamped on his already injured foot and threatened to “fucking put [him] down” – the PSD investigator purported to find that Mellor’s use of force was “acceptable.”
The matter only proceeded to its correct and just result after I, on behalf of Shane, appealed the original complaint decision to the Independent Office for Police Conduct and they, the IOPC, insisted that misconduct charges be brought against Mellor. Indeed, Lincolnshire PSD initially tried to resist the IOPC’s recommendations, causing the IOPC to invoke its power under Paragraph 27(4)(a) of Schedule 3 of the Police Reform Act 2002 in order to force the Police to do so, a decision which I heartily endorsed.
So justice has – belatedly been done – but here we have yet another reminder of the ‘toxic privilege’ which protects misbehaving Police Officers through the collaboration of their colleagues, consciously or sub-consciously, as evidenced here both by the behaviour of the ‘responder’ officers who came to the scene (and formally arrested my client, whilst laughing and joking with the Inspector) and the subsequent, outrageous white-washing of the complaint by PSD officers who, unlike the first responders, had seen the damning phone footage.
It is, frankly, nothing short of a betrayal of their policing duties and the public trust when PSD look for ways to let officers off the hook, rather than to hold them accountable – and deeply dismaying how common this is. Mellor may have thought he would escape accountability and ultimately he did not – but it was no thanks to Lincolnshire Police.
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