An innocent driver detained by Police after a ‘stinger’ was deployed against his car was denied compensation, until he turned to me for help and advice.
In April 2023 my client Will was driving his own vehicle through his home neighbourhood in the West Midlands.
He had just reached a road junction when a stinger device was suddenly thrown in front of his vehicle by West Midlands Police Officers, puncturing all four of his tyres and causing the car to come to a complete stop.
What are Stingers?
Stingers, also known as road spikes, are a form of device used by Police and Paramilitary organisations worldwide to enable them to immobilise target vehicles. They are a belt of spikes capable of being quickly whipped out across the road, which then rip and puncture the tyres of the moving vehicle, bringing it to an immediate and violent halt. They are an extremely serious use of force which should never been deployed lightly – but in my experience are frequently misused by the Police against innocent drivers.
When the Police use these devices to ‘crash’ the wrong car, they should pay for the consequences; but they will usually seek to avoid doing so, unless you have an experienced legal professional on your side.
A Police ‘Ambush’
Already in a state of shock and confusion, Will now found Police Officers surrounding his vehicle and he was ordered to remove the keys from his ignition and place them onto the dashboard – which he did.
Officers then extracted Will from the vehicle and placed him into the rear of a Police car. In request, Will provided his personal details which officers proceeded to check in police systems.
One of the officers then queried whether Will knew a particular individual – and he replied honestly that he did not.
After approximately 20 minutes, still essentially entirely in the dark as to why any of this had happened, Will was told he was going to be released and that he should contact West Midlands Police Legal Services, though merely to recover the cost of replacing his tyres. The officers then left.
Will, however, was going nowhere immediately – owing to the damage to his tyres his car could obviously not be driven and he was therefore forced to call for a recovery vehicle and have it conveyed to his home address.
Will was then put to further expense getting his tyres replaced. He is a self-employed roofer and this expense and inconvenience impacted significantly upon his job – as well as the mental trauma of what he had just gone through.
As had been suggested by the officers at the scene, Will did subsequently contact West Midlands Police Legal Services – only to receive a letter from them some three months later refusing his claim. The letter of denial stated that the deployment of the stinger against Will’s vehicle “was authorised on intelligence”, but did not in any way explain what that “intelligence” was or provide any disclosure of documentary evidence in support.
It was in those circumstances that Will then approached me for expert legal advice and assistance.
Stinger Mis-deployment Admission
In response to the letter of claim which I wrote on Will’s behalf, West Midlands Police made the following admission –
“Having reviewed the matter it is apparent that a suspected drug dealer had contacted WMP to report that his girlfriend had damaged his vehicle. However, the details that he provided (for reasons unknown) were that of [the Claimant’s] vehicle.
As a result of this information and the caller’s links to drug dealing the decision was taken to deploy the stinger device and stop the vehicle. It is of course accepted that [the Claimant] was an innocent party and that his vehicle details had been erroneously provided by the caller.”
From the information available, my client believes that the suspected drug dealer referred to by West Midland Police was the boyfriend of one of his neighbours, and the call from him to the Police occurred several days prior to the stinger attack on Will’s vehicle. My client himself had no involvement in that earlier incident.
In pursing this claim, the evidence uncovered uncontrovertibly demonstrated that the police had not done their “due diligence” in investigating this matter –
- Police database searches carried out prior to the day of the stinger attack showed that my client’s vehicle had no link to the suspected “County Lines” drug dealer and that it was insured in my client’s sole name and he was the registered keeper.
- My client himself had no links to criminality whatsoever.
- My client is a young white man in his mid-20s, and the suspect the police were looking for is older, black and of a significantly larger build.
Why the drugs suspect initially reported the wrong registration number we can only speculate – but a modicum of common-sense and investigative effort if applied by the police to ‘join up the dots’ in this case would have saved everybody involved a lot of time, trauma and trouble.
I am pleased to confirm that what Will rightfully recovered at the end of the case was £6,500 damages, plus his legal costs.
This was far more than just the cost of his punctured tyres – because civil liberties are much more expensive than that.
My client’s name has been changed.
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