In October 2019, my client Simon Jones, his wife and three children (aged 8, 12 and 16) went on a Sunday morning shopping trip in their new car which Simon had purchased the day before.
As Simon was driving, a ‘stinger’ device was suddenly and without warning thrown across the road in front of his vehicle. This caused Simon to have to perform an emergency breaking manoeuvre and he and his family to be thrown violently about inside the car as it collided with the stinger.
The stinger had been deployed by officers of West Midlands Police and had punctured both front tyres of the car, stopping it dead in its tracks.
Simon’s car was then ‘swarmed’ by a number of police officers who ordered him out of the car and who then led Simon to an unmarked police vehicle nearby, making him sit in the rear.
Simon was detained and questioned within the police car for approximately 10 minutes before the police evidently became satisfied that his vehicle was legitimate, whereupon he was allowed to leave the police vehicle and re-join his shocked and shaken family.
All had suffered whiplash and seatbelt bruising injuries and an ambulance was called.
In response to the claim which I subsequently advanced on behalf of Simon and his family, West Midlands Police alleged that they had “reasonable grounds” for suspecting his car was a ‘cloned’ vehicle. They further admitted that they had not made themselves known to Simon , or attempted to get him to pull over by peaceful means, but also sought to argue that a ‘pre-emptive strike’ was justified in anticipation of the vehicle not stopping if the police revealed themselves.
Their justification for this assertion was an incident which occurred almost 2 months earlier when WMP officers were conducting speed checks in the local area and a white Mercedes motor car with the same registration as my client’s vehicle had failed to stop.
It was stated that subsequent police enquiries via Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras (ANPR) had established that the vehicle which had failed to stop on the earlier occasion, was a ‘clone’ and that the genuine vehicle was registered in Kent.
Simon had in fact purchased the genuine motor car in Kent the day before. Then when Simon was driving his family in the vehicle the following day, it was apparently flagged up on the ANPR system as “A potential cloned vehicle.” However, there were in fact a number of distinct differences between Simon’s legitimate car and the clone, including the fact that one had a sunroof and the other did not.
Although West Midlands Police disputed liability, they agreed an out of court settlement of £12,750 for both Simon and his wife to reflect their errors/mistakes and disproportionate use of force.
All names changed.
Also read: Cloned Car Mistake Leads to Police Stinger Attack on Innocent Family
Iain Gould - Actions Against the Police Solicitor 