A Black man was unlawfully stopped, searched, and arrested by police officers who appeared to target him because he was driving a high-performance vehicle during the Covid lockdown. Poor supervision of a trainee officer, racial profiling, and misuse of stop and search powers led to excessive force and a wrongful arrest. Misconduct was found, and my client received £15,000 in damages. This case highlights serious concerns about police accountability, training, and discriminatory law enforcement practices. 

What do you get when you set a Student Police Officer on the loose, with inadequate supervision, during the 2021 Covid ‘lockdown’ period, with apparent instructions to find someone to practise her “stop and search”  skills upon, and a Black man driving a high- performance motor vehicle? No laughing matter, is the answer. 

This week’s blog post features the coming together of three common Police ‘vices’, as my client Christopher, a British Black man of Jamaican heritage, was made the target of a Police ‘training exercise’ which went very wrong for all concerned. My client alone comes out of these events with his head held high and his pride intact, despite the trauma and abuse he had to endure as a result of Police Officers: 

• Empowering their inner authoritarianism during the ‘Covid Curfew’ 
• Prejudicially profiling Black males driving marque vehicles 
• Misusing Public Order legislation to arrest people who are committing no crime, but whose attitude the Officer doesn’t like. 

 The one positive which we can take out of this story is the fact that the custodial gatekeeper – the Custody Sergeant who so very often just seems to ‘rubber stamp’ every arrest that is brought before him – did his job properly on this occasion, objectively interrogating and sceptically questioning the arresting Officer’s narrative and rationale. Frankly, if more such wrongful arrests were rejected at the earliest opportunity in the Station, like this, it would lead to a highly positive culture change amongst the Police and fewer innocent people would face such traumas in the future. 

One evening in March 2021, Christopher was driving his black Mercedes motor car through Gloucester; his girlfriend was a passenger in the car. At all times he was driving in a safe and legal manner. Whilst he was stationary at a set of traffic lights, a marked police car pulled up behind him. This vehicle was being driven by PC Clark, a Student Officer of Gloucestershire Constabulary. 

Once the lights changed, Christopher drove on a short distance, before arriving at the car park which was his intended destination. He got out to lower the bollard which blocked entrance to the car park; as he did so PC Clark alighted from her vehicle and in a raised voice asked where Chris was going.  

My client responded, “What business is it of yours?” and – correctly sensing trouble – wisely asked PC Clark to activate her body worn camera.  

The Officer then questioned Chris as to ‘what he was doing’ in Gloucester given that the vehicle was registered at an address in Cheltenham, and the country was in ‘lockdown’ by reason of the Covid pandemic. Of course, even at its highest, lockdown was never a true ‘stay off the streets’ curfew –  but all too many Officers acted as if that was exactly what it was, and treated ordinary citizens like children who were out in the school corridors during lesson time.

We might also observe here, that this was a particularly desperate excuse to challenge someone with: Cheltenham and Gloucester not being quite as synonymous as John O’Groats and Land’s End are in terms of distance from one another across our island! 

Chris was concerned that the Officer had carried out a check on his vehicle registration for no reason he could imagine other than that he was a Black male driving an expensive vehicle, and was understandably disgruntled as a result. He asserted that it was none of her business and began to walk away. In response, PC Clark told Chris to “come back here”.  My client asked the Officer to have “some manners” – and also noted, as was so often the case in such encounters during Covid, that this enforcer of the lockdown was not herself wearing a face mask or any PPE (and, indeed, was provoking a close quarter encounter with another person for no good reason). 

PC Clark now accused Christopher of being “aggressive” and declared that because he was being “unhelpful”, she would do a “few [more] checks” on his vehicle. 

As she was saying this, Chris noticed a vehicle overshoot the junction, reverse quickly and then proceed up the street towards them, and pull up behind PC Clark’s vehicle. The vehicle was a grey, unmarked Vauxhall Astra. 

His ‘Spidey Sense’ tingling, Chris approached the Vauxhall Astra to speak to the two men inside it, and as he did so, PC Clark said to him “That’s just, I think that’s just some colleagues of mine. Wait, come back here please”.  Chris now, correctly, formed the impression that the two men in the Astra were plain-clothed police officers. 

This heightened his suspicions as to the legitimacy of this ‘stop’ even further. At this time, Chris had lodged two complaints against Gloucestershire Constabulary as regards incidents that occurred in 2012 and 2020 which were ongoing, and he feared he was being targeted because of this. 

PC Clark now followed Chris and took hold of his left arm; when he asked her to remove her hand, the Officer again accused Chris of being aggressive. 

The Officer now advised Christopher that he was detained for a search although failed to specify any reason: a blatant breach of the GOWISELY regulations governing Police stop and search powers, thereby rendering her actions unlawful (even had it been based on reasonable suspicion of criminality, which of course it wasn’t). 

The two men in the Astra, now known to be PC Brewster and PC Pilsworth, alighted. Upon Chris’s request, these two male officers identified themselves: neither of them were wearing face masks either. 

Christopher was then searched. PC Clark told my client to stand in a particular spot and threatened to handcuff him should he fail to do so. The search was negative and Chris told the officers that he would lodge a complaint. 

Chris was unhappy both with PC Clark’s unjustified decision to stop and then search him, and the way PC Pilsworth had manhandled him during the search. Whilst PC Clark wrote down the details of the stop (the written record Chris was also entitled to under GOWISELY) Chris phoned 101 to request that a Police supervisor attend. 

PC Clark then walked over to her vehicle and got in. By this time, Christopher had been connected to an operator and was asking for a supervisor to attend. Accordingly, my client asked PC Clark to wait. This seems a perfectly reasonable request to me – after all, the Officer had initiated the whole encounter by telling Chris to wait – but PC Clark then began to slowly reverse her car, at which Chris knocked on the window. PC Clark, however, ignored my client and so Chris opened the driver’s door of PC Clark’s vehicle and politely advised PC Clark that the operator wanted to talk to her. 

In response, PC Clark alighted from the car, put her right hand on Chris’s chest and pushed him back.  She then removed her handcuffs and informed my shocked client that he was under arrest for “obstruction.”   

PC Pilsworth then took over handcuffing of Chris. The handcuffs were applied extremely tightly to the rear and, in the process, PC Pilsworth twisted the handcuffs causing Chris significant pain and discomfort. 

PC Clark now announced that Chris was under arrest for “public order” offences because he had allegedly been ‘abusive’ to the three thin-skinned officers.  It was, in fact, transparent that Chris was being arrested for doing no more than ‘talking back’ to the Officers and standing up for his rights. 

After a short while, a police van arrived with two more ‘maskless’ Officers. (Don’t forget the original excuse for this stop was supposedly to prevent the further spread of the Coronavirus.) When the van driver alighted, and Chris asked for her name she flippantly and derogatorily responded “I’m your taxi.” 

As my client began to walk to the van, conscious that all of this was being witnessed by his girlfriend, PC Pilsworth violently wrenched him backwards – for supposedly ‘walking too quickly’ and caused Chris further pain through pressure on his handcuffs as he unnecessarily ‘escorted’ my client into the van. 

Chris was then transported to Gloucester Police Station. Upon exiting the van, another Officer seized hold of his arm causing him yet further pain and discomfort.  This officer then led him into the custody suite. Chris complained that he had suffered injury and required medical treatment, but was ignored. 

After approximately 15 minutes in a holding cell, Chris was presented to the Custody Sergeant. 

The reason for arrest was recorded as follows:

“Public Order, Disorderly Conduct (S.5) – DP has been stopped as part of a traffic stop.  He was saying Police beat their wifes up and calling Police rude. He was searched.  He was asking Officers why they were there and was obnoxious.”

 The Arrest was said to be necessary to “Prevent physical injury.” 

Supplementary details of arrest were then recorded as follows: 

“Officer gave details and said they’d leave. DP called 101 believed by Officers 101 asked to speak to Officers and DP opened Officer’s car door as she was moving away. DP arrested for Public Order offence.”

The Custody Record also noted that the reason for the Claimant’s Stop and Search was “Stolen property.”

 On considering all of the above, the Custody Sergeant quite correctly decided to refuse to authorise my client’s detention and directed PC Clark to remove the handcuffs from Chris. 

The Sergeant then wrote in the Custody Record:

 “S.5 Public Order offence does not appear to be made out. No obstruct Police made out.  No vehicle interference made out. Detention not necessary.”

 With his freedom restored, Chris reiterated that he was experiencing pain in his right shoulder and he required medical treatment. The Custody Sergeant agreed to arrange for his transport to Gloucester Hospital – but sadly, Chris’s degrading treatment at the hands of Gloucestershire Constabulary had not yet finished – the Officers whose job it was to take him to hospital forced him to travel in the cage section at the back of their van, as if he was still a prisoner; another unnecessary and humiliating experience. 

Chris then received treatment for his injuries before returning home. Whilst awaiting treatment, my client established that the application of the handcuffs had been so tight that the metal bracelets worn on both of his wrists were damaged. 

Chris subsequently lodged a complaint with Gloucestershire Police’s Professional Standards Department, which confirmed that PC Clark had been a student Officer who was being ‘monitored’ by PC Brewster and PC Pilsworth. 

On review of the Investigation Report, the Appropriate Authority, DCI Harris, concluded that the actions of PC Clark, PC Brewster and PC Pilsworth all justified Misconduct proceedings but that as PC Clark had now resigned, action would be taken against PC Brewster and PC Pilsworth only. In this respect, DCI Harris found that PC Brewster and PC Pilsworth were “experienced Officers…(who had) shown a lack of knowledge in relation to basic policing skills and legislation”. However, the charge they faced was only ‘misconduct’ and not ‘gross misconduct’ – meaning that they could not be sacked. 

Chris’s view was that PC Clark had been used as a scapegoat by Brewster and Pilsworth and that the proposed sanctions against those Offices were “woefully light”.  He appealed to the IOPC (Independent Office For Police Conduct) but the decision to charge the officers only with misconduct, not gross misconduct, was maintained meaning that neither Pilsworth nor Brewster would be following young PC Clark out of the exit door of the Policing profession; despite the fact that, in Chris’s eyes, these supposedly experienced Officers had failed to keep either their student charge or an innocent member of the public safe – subjecting Chris to assault and imprisonment, practically kidnapping him from the streets in circumstances highly suggestive of both racial profiling and authoritarian bullying at odds with both the laws of England and the supposed ethos of ‘Peelian’ Policing-by-Consent. They had totally failed to demonstrate the objective thinking and level-headed leadership of which the Custody Sergeant had been capable.   

PC Brewster and PC Pilsworth attended a Misconduct Meeting on 25 October 2023 at which the Chairperson found that their conduct amounted to misconduct, and both Officers were issued with written warnings. 

Although Chris was left deeply dissatisfied what he considered to be mere ‘slaps on the wrists’ for both of these officers, I am pleased to confirm that I was able to extract an admission of liability from the Chief Constable for his officers tortious interference with both my client’s liberty and his bodily integrity, and I have recently settled his claim for damages in the sum of £15,000 plus legal costs. 

Chris’s period of detention was for less than an hour overall, but I identified significant aggravating factors in the way he was treated by the Officers – including the racial element which understandably had led Chris to feel stereotyped and targeted, and the fact that this was an abuse not only of arrest but also stop and search and Coronavirus policing powers  – which entitled him to a higher award of damages, in addition to his injuries. 

Whether PC Clark’s unhappy experience of these events contributed to her resignation from the Police training programme, I can only speculate; as to whether PCs Brewster and Pilsworth will have learned better from their own experiences, I am sceptical; but one thing is certain – the Police need more training days all round, and on this occasion, Christopher and I taught them a lesson.                                              

My client’s name has been changed.

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please post a positive review on Trustpilot to get the word out. Every 5 star review I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

Cambridgeshire Police to pay £12,500 to private medic after wrongful arrest.

Cambridgeshire Police will pay £12,500 in compensation to Brian Norkett, a registered private medic, after wrongfully arresting him for impersonating a police officer while assisting at a roadside collision. Officers ignored his lawful role and detained him despite no criminal conduct.

My client Brian Norkett is a director of a private ambulance company, AMS UK.  What follows is the story of how Cambridgeshire Police – in effect – attempted to criminalise him for stopping to help at the scene of a road traffic collision, and how my team and I were able to help him to win both vindication and compensation. Brian was principally represented by my excellent colleague Aidan Walley (you can read about some of Aidan’s other cases here and here).   

In January 2023, Brian was driving a company owned rapid response vehicle, which was marked with a white and green battenburg pattern and equipped with emergency blue lights.  Furthermore, he was attired in a ‘high vis’ jacket with green battenburg patterning around the waist and arms and the word ‘Medic’ visible on the front and rear. 

At approximately 4pm, Brian was returning home from a job in the vicinity of Peterborough when he noticed that several vehicles were blocking a lane on the slip road, as two cars had collided. Brian also noticed that several pedestrians were out in the carriageway and he was concerned for their safety as it was dark, and they were not wearing high vis clothing.

Accordingly, as he had done many times before, Brian activated his blue lights and stopped behind the other vehicles. He got out and spoke to the other drivers, and on finding that the Police had not yet been called, he called the Police himself, identified himself to the operator and explained that he was a medic and that his car was illuminated with blue lights. The operator told Brian to continue as he was. Brian helpfully placed cones to block the lane and assessed the drivers and passengers from the collision vehicles – thankfully, none required medical treatment.

Shortly thereafter a Police car arrived, containing two Officers of Cambridgeshire Constabulary – PC Whybray and PC Plume. PC Plume spoke to the other drivers, whilst PC Whybray approached Brian and asked “Is it private?” indicating Brian’s vehicle. Brian confirmed that it was indeed a private ambulance, not NHS. 

PC Whybray then told Brian to leave.  Brian began to move towards his vehicle to do so, but then PC Whybray approached him again and demanded his details under the Road Traffic Act, without specifying upon which section he was relying. In the circumstances, Brian was aware that he was not obliged to give the Officer his details as he had not:

• been involved in the collision
• witnessed it. 

He therefore declined to do so and got back into his vehicle, intending to leave.  

Before Brian could start the engine, however, PC Whybray grabbed hold of his hand, squeezing it tightly. Brian was holding his vehicle keys in this hand, and the Officer’s actions caused one of the keys to press into Brian’s flesh. Understandably, Brian swore out in pain.  PC Whybray then immediately arrested him for an alleged breach of Section 5 of the Public Order Act.

Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, under the heading “Harassment, Alarm or Distress” provides as follows –

A person is guilty of an offence if he—

(a) uses threatening or abusive words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or

(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening or abusive,

within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.

Regrettably, Harassment, Alarm and Distress are the Three Horsemen of Wrongful Arrest in modern day Britain, and the Fourth is Police Authoritarianism.

Brian was understandably in a state of shock. He was a man of entirely good character, with no previous experience of arrest or Police custody. Now, however, having stopped like a Good Samaritan at the scene of a road side crash to offer his assistance, and having done nothing more than refuse a Police Officer’s unlawful demand for his personal details, Brian found himself being handcuffed. He was tipped over the precipice from shock into disbelief when PC Whybray informed him that he was now also under arrest for Impersonating a Police Officer.

Section 90 of the Police Act 1996, under the heading “Impersonation Etc” provides as follows-

(1) Any person who with intent to deceive impersonates a member of a police force or special constable, or makes any statement or does any act calculated falsely to suggest that he is such a member or constable, shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both.

(2) Any person who, not being a constable, wears any article of police uniform in circumstances where it gives him an appearance so nearly resembling that of a member of a police force as to be calculated to deceive shall be guilty of an offence…

(3) Any person who, not being a member of a police force or special constable, has in his possession any article of police uniform shall, unless he proves that he obtained possession of that article lawfully and has possession of it for a lawful purpose, be guilty of an offence…

(4) In this section—

(a) “article of police uniform” means any article of uniform or any distinctive badge or mark or document of identification usually issued to members of police forces or special constables, or anything having the appearance of such an article, badge, mark or document.

Brian was taken under arrest to Peterborough Police Station.  He was produced before the Custody Sergeant and the circumstances of his arrest were recorded in the Custody Record as follows –

“It is alleged that following attendance at an RTC [road traffic collision] they have found the detainee using a vehicle with emergency lights at the scene. When challenged in regards to this the detainee refused to provide details, has sworn at officers and then resisted arrest”.

After several miserable hours in a cell, Brian was taken for interview under caution, during which interview it was incorrectly alleged that he had attempted to drive away after being told that he was under arrest.

Shortly thereafter, Brian was ‘refused charge’ and released from custody.  Sanity, it seemed, had finally prevailed – but of course Brian should never have been arrested in regard to any of these offences in the first place.

Following Brian’s release, he found out that after his arrest an Officer had called Brian’s wife to come and collect the company vehicle from the scene.  On her arrival, however, Brian’s wife also encountered PC Whybray, who refused to release the car to her and threatened to arrest her as well. My client’s wife later had to call 101 and was told that the vehicle had been taken to a Police compound and Brian had to travel there the following day to collect it – but found that the dashcam had been removed.  

Yet Another Complaint ‘Blue Wash’?

Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) statutory guidance stresses the importance of handling complaints with a ‘customer focused’ approach, with the complaint handler providing satisfactory detail to the complainant as to the rationale for their decision making. Regrettably, the general ethos of Police Professional Standard Department complaint handlers (PSD) is the opposite – they adopt a colleague-focused approach with the apparent purpose of advocating for the officer, belittling and criticising the complainant, and finding reasons to dismiss the complaint.

Cambridgeshire PSDs initial response to my client’s complaint was both negative and obtuse – employing circular logic to justify PC Whybray’s actions and failing to properly explain the ‘rationale’ of the complaint handler’s decision. They stated that Brian’s complaint was “not upheld”, although PC Whybray required ‘learning’ by means of Reflective Practice, for unspecified reasons. That opaque phrase – “Reflective Practice” –  is as meaningless as it sounds; perhaps an attempt by PSD to make it look as though they are doing something, when in fact they are doing nothing at all. In my opinion, it just signifies an empty box-ticking exercise on an annual appraisal sheet.

My team therefore assisted Brian in successfully appealing the outcome of this decision to the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) for Cambridgeshire. The OPCC are the junior partners of the IOPC when it comes to reviewing internal Police complaint reports, delegated to deal with those complaints considered to be below the top levels of severity. The OPCC concluded that the complaint handling to date had been neither reasonable nor proportionate and recommended that the matter be fully reinvestigated by PSD.

This did indeed result in a new complaint report being produced – but sadly not a new outcome. The PSD did not open the doors of its closed mind when readdressing the complaint and the ‘rationale’ for the decision-making it now provided was as full of pro-Police bias as I have wearily come to expect.

Whereas the OPCC had been critical on multiple grounds of PC Whybray’s arrest of Brian for an alleged Section 5 Public Order Act offence, Cambridgeshire PSD rejected all these concerns.  The OPCC pointed out that this alleged offence – which was simply based on Brian using the ‘F- word’ when PC Whybray had attempted to take his keys – had occurred when Brian was sitting in his vehicle, with no members of the public in earshot, and they expressed scepticism that either of the two officers present could legitimately claim to have been ”harassed, alarmed or distressed” by the use of this fairly innocuous and commonplace swear word, with the OPCC correctly observing “that police officers in the course of their duties regularly experience far worse language and behaviour without resorting to arrest…….”.  This is of course quite correct, and I have written before about how merely using a swear word is not a criminal offence. Indeed, this point was brought into stark contrast in the present case: body worn video footage later caught PC Whybray’s colleague PC Plume using exactly the same ‘obscenity’ i.e. the F- word, but on that occasion PC Whybray was not triggered to arrest his colleague.

How did the PSD get their officer out of this one?  Well, firstly their complaint handler had to admit that “PC Whybray does not appear to be harassed, alarmed or distressed by [Brian’s] comment” but then made the following pivot –

“It is worth noting that the camera footage shows that a member of the public involved in the RTC is in close proximity, likely heard Mr Norkett’s comments and was likely to have been alarmed to  hear Mr Norkett speak to a police officer in this way……[whereas] PC Plume’s use of profanity was used in a one-to-one conversation with a colleague and there were no members of the public present that it could have caused harassment, alarm or distress to.”

The reasoning employed here by Cambridgeshire PSD is indicative of a blatant double standard – in effect, police officers are allowed to swear, members of the public are not, and swearing at a police officer is deemed to be some kind of secular blasphemy ‘likely’ to be shocking to all right- thinking members of the public. Note also the way that the complaint handler, lacking any evidence to support his assertions, not only claims that a member of the public probably overheard Brian’s swear word – but also purports to get inside the head of that member of the public and conclude that they were probably “harassed, alarmed or distressed.”  Here is the problem with requiring PSD to explain its rationale – you are forced to have to contemplate such manipulative and mendacious so-called ‘reasoning’ at this particular specimen.

In regards to the demand for my client’s personal details – which began before even the officers’ accounts allege that he was under suspicion of having committed any criminal offence – the PSD report purported to justify this by reference to Section 164 of the Road Traffic Act, which provides police constables with the power to require the production of a driving licence, and in certain cases, dates of birth from any of the following persons – 

1. A person driving a motor vehicle on a road.
2. A person whom a constable has reasonable cause to believe to have been the driver of a motor vehicle at a time when an accident occurred owing to his presence on a road.
3. A person whom a constable has reasonable cause to believe to have committed an offence in relation to the use of a motor vehicle on the road.

Of course, the point here is that my client was not driving his vehicle when the interactions with PC Whybray occurred. He had already parked and exited his vehicle before the officer arrived at the scene.  He was challenged for his details before he had returned to his car.  He was therefore to all intents and purposes a pedestrian and not liable to have to provide his details under this section of the Road Traffic Act.

In regard to the arrest under S.90 Police Act – my client’s car was fully insured to utilise blue lights and he himself had blue light advance driving qualifications. His jacket was clearly labelled ‘Medic’ and it was in that role that he was at the scene. The Police might with more justification arrest all of those horse riders or motorcycle drivers who wear bibs printed with the world “Polite” in such a font that from a distance it looks like the word “Police”… However, the blatantly abusive act of arresting Brian for ‘impersonating a police officer’ was simply breezily skipped over by PSD, who purported to hide behind their ‘finding’ that Brian’s arrest for the Public Order Offence of using a ‘naughty word’ to such a Very Important Person as a police constable, was justified.

As I have said throughout, I do not believe that Cambridgeshire PSD were objectively examining the legitimacy of PC Whybray’s actions; rather they were looking for reasons to excuse his actions, and to reject Brian’s complaint, which is exactly what they did.

Lights Out: Suing Cambridgeshire Constabulary

Matters did not have to rest there, however. Ably advised by my colleague Aidan, Brian was determined to hold Cambridgeshire Police to account.  As the OPCC had observed “the removal of a person’s liberty should be a matter of serious consideration and only used when necessary.”

That is exactly the point here; a personality clash may have flared up between Brian and PC Whybray, but obstruction of an officer’s ego is emphatically not a ground for arrest – even though it is, in reality, the motivation for so very many.

We submitted a detailed letter of claim on behalf of Brian, which taught the Police the seriousness – and illegality – of their actions: in response they admitted liability for false imprisonment, assault and battery and trespass to goods against my client.

Ultimately, the Police agreed to pay Brian £12,500 damages, plus his legal costs, and off the back of this settlement Aidan was also able to assist Brian in making a successful application to ACRO (Criminal Records Office) to have his arrest data expunged from the Police National Computer system.

It should never have come to this. Brian was doing his best, as a medical professional, to assist the emergency services and help the public – and instead was treated like a criminal. He will now think twice before ever stopping to assist in such scenarios again; the Police have lost a valuable ally.

Who, in the ethical sense, was really ‘impersonating’ an Officer here, we may ask – Brian or PC Whybray?

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please share this post with friends and/or family and post a positive review on TrustPilot (kindly set up by Gerard Hearne). Every 5 star review which I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice come to the right place. Thank you!

In September, I wrote about the case of my client Scott Barratt, who suffered a fractured nose after being deliberately kicked in the face by PC Alan Kirkwood of Lincolnshire Police.   Scott had tried to stop a suspect – a bicycle thief – whom the officer was pursuing. The suspect had got away, and PC Kirkwood not only mistook my innocent client for the culprit, but forced Scott, at ‘taser- point’, onto his hands and knees on the ground and then kicked him in the face, with the words “Fucking bastard!”  

In my opinion, the officer was at that moment behaving at best as a vigilante, and at worse as a common thug, and in any event way beyond the bounds of the law and his duty. We can all hear the satisfaction that the officer evidently took in his violence from those words “Fucking bastard!” – unfortunately, Scott not only heard but felt that ‘satisfaction’ as his nose splintered.

 I should add that PC Kirkwood did initially face criminal charges for ABH (Actual Bodily Harm) arising from this incident, but as is so often the case, his police uniform proved ‘Teflon’ as far as the criminal court was concerned, with the Judge at Nottingham Crown Court saluting the jury’s “not guilty” verdict in the following, rather excitable, terms:  

“It is in my view simply unfair to have dragged PC Kirkwood through the criminal courts for his mistake. I hope my words are going to be reported. The decision to prosecute seems to me to fundamentally misunderstand the instincts of an English jury which was being asked to convict an exemplary man of 43 years’ service, acting in good faith in his duty and who made a mistake. That is simply not fair play and if that is a British value, there is a failure. The real failure in this case was to prosecute.”  

Clearly the judge and I will have to agree to disagree about the fundamental constituents of British justice: I would contend that whilst misidentification is indeed a ‘mistake’, it is far from ‘good faith’ or ‘fair play’ to force someone onto the ground in order to deliberately hurt them when they are defenceless.  

I would also offer the observation that the ‘real failure’ in the criminal case, was not the decision to prosecute, but rather the seemingly inexplicable decision not to call my client – the victim – as a witness for the prosecution. Perhaps the conclusions of the jury might have been different had they heard from the “exemplary man” who was on the end of kick, rather than just the one who delivered it.  

Following the outcome of the criminal case, Lincolnshire Police Professional Standards Department (PSD) produced a report exonerating PC Kirkwood from any misconduct charges – notwithstanding the fact that whilst the threshold for criminal guilt is “beyond reasonable doubt”, a disciplinary panel has to assess the evidence “on the balance of probabilities” (i.e which conclusion is simply more likely than the other) making a misconduct finding far more achievable in the same circumstances. Nevertheless, PSD decided that PC Kirkwood’s assault upon Scott was “reasonable, proportionate and necessary” and the Deputy Chief Constable concluded the officer had “no case to answer” for misconduct.  

This outcome might sound familiar to those of you who have recently read about the case of my client Shane Price, for whom I won £100,000 damages from the same force. In that case, Lincolnshire PSD had followed the same ‘play-book’, in my opinion wilfully overlooking clear evidence of misconduct to let their Officer –  Inspector Jon Mellor – wriggle off the hook after a “not guilty” verdict in Nottingham Magistrates Court.  

However, I was able to use the power of appeal to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) – the so called “Right of Review” – to get that decision overturned, and after initial resistance was met from Lincolnshire Police, the IOPC, utilising its powers under the Police Reform Act 2002, directed them to bring Mellor before a gross misconduct panel, where justice was finally served.  

I am pleased to confirm that I have likewise succeeded in an appeal to overturn PSD’s finding in Scott Barratt’s case – and PC Kirkwood should now also face a hearing for gross misconduct.

 The IOPC findings included the following: 

• “A reasonable panel could find that the available evidence may indicate that the decision to kick Mr Barratt in the face was borne out of anger rather than for a legitimate policing purpose…”  
• “A reasonable panel could find that…the decision to aim [the kick] at the head was not justified and represents an excessive use of force and this would have been the case even if Mr Barratt had been the person who assaulted PC Kirkwood. The fact that Mr Barratt was not in any way involved, in my view, makes the fact that he was injured even worse.”

 When the Police ‘look the other way’ and fail to properly police their own ranks, they are doing themselves as an institution and the very purpose of their existence a gross disservice, just as they are doing a disservice to the public at large and here, quite specifically, Scott Barratt.

 In assisting my clients, such as Scott and Shane, I am proud to be helping to uphold the three principles of Police disciplinary proceedings: 

1. To maintain public confidence in, and the reputation of, the Police Service;
2. To uphold high standards in Policing and deter misconduct;
3. To protect the Public.

Whether Lincolnshire Police will first put up a fight to try and save their officer from the misconduct charge, as they did with the notably higher- ranking Inspector Mellor, remains to be seen; but I am ultimately confident of the right outcome.  

British justice has a way of getting there in the end.

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please post a positive review on Trustpilot to get the word out. Every 5 star review I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

I am writing this blog post on the day that the new 2025/2026 football season fixtures have been announced – despite the fact that it hardly seems like 90 minutes since the final whistles of last season’s final round of matches were sounding up and down the country.

Contemplating football, not just as a fan of the game but as a professional who specialises in police misconduct cases, makes me think of the many occasions when I have been called up to assist innocent fans who have been the victim of violence perpetrated by hooligans in uniform.

In the news this week was the case of PC Richard Mannox of West Midlands Police, who was dismissed for gross misconduct following the use of excessive force against a football supporter.

After a League Two match between Walsall FC and Barrow AFC in March 2023, PC Mannox approached Edward Papas, a Barrow fan, with what the Independent Officer for Police Conduct (IOPC) later described as “a confrontational approach from the outset” after Mr Papas had had a minor disagreement with a steward.

Mannox was found to have sworn at, threatened and then struck Mr Papas in the face, after Papas had simply been trying to get back to his car after the game.

All of this occurred in public view – captured on footage that would eventually circulate widely online. One of the many benefits of modern technology when it comes to ensuring police accountability: Many a viral video has caught an offending officer cold.

Nevertheless, in a story that is almost as old as time, it was Mr Papas – not the police officer – who was initially prosecuted.  He faced two charges of assault, allegations that were ultimately dismissed in Wolverhampton Crown Court in January 2024. 

Only following his acquittal, did the full weight of scrutiny turn towards the officer’s conduct, which the trial judge branded as “disgraceful.”

Following an IOPC investigation a Misconduct Panel convicted the officer of gross misconduct, and as well as dismissing him from the police service has barred him from ever serving in the police again. 

This sequence of events is far from unusual. All too often, victims of police brutality find themselves being hindered, not helped, by the criminal justice system – charged with serious offences and threatened with criminalisation.There is a twisted logic at the heart of all such wrongful prosecutions – the more severe the force an officer has inflicted upon someone, the more that officer, often aided and abetted by his colleagues, is desperate to erect a smoke screen for his own wrongdoing by painting the victim as the aggressor – an aggressor who deserves criminal punishment.

In other words, the more over- the- top an officer is in assaulting you – the greater the likelihood you are going to be arrested because police officers only mete out such punishment if it’s deserved – don’t they?

Victims of police misconduct having to sweat through months and months of the criminal prosecution process and then defend themselves in court – potentially with their liberty and livelihood at stake, with a criminal conviction hanging over them – are being doubly victimised. These are generally not just cases of insult being added to injury, but psychiatric harm being loaded on top of cuts, scars, bruises and broken bones.

Have you been the victim of Police brutality at a Football Match?

If you believe you’ve been subjected to wrongful arrest or excessive force by police officers at a football match, it is essential to seek legal advice from a solicitor such as myself with expertise and a long track record of success in this area. Read about some of the cases in which I have helped clients win tens of thousands of pounds compensation after suffering police brutality at football matches:

• Bryan Alden, who recovered £358,000 damages from West Midlands Police after a brutal baton strike fractured his hand and cost him his career, outside Villa Park
• Jack, who won £10,000 damages from Greater Manchester Police after being assaulted for “giving cheek” to two Officers after a Manchester derby
• William Biddle, who won £6,000 from Nottinghamshire Police after first being knocked over by a Police van outside Notts County’s stadium, and who was then threatened with arrest for complaining about it.
• “Chris”, a Birmingham City supporter, recovered £17,500 damages after being struck in the head by a Police Officer using a riot shield as a weapon.
• “Robert” who recovered a five-figure damages sum after being bitten by a Police dog after the Sheffield derby (and whose initial attempt to complain had been met with a false Public Order charge).

And remember, that when next season kicks off, whatever team you support – I am on your side.

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please post a positive review on Trustpilot to get the word out. Every 5 star review I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

One day in the Summer of 2023, after collecting his 13-year-old son from tennis practice, my client Jameel Rahmaan attended his local Sainsburys store to purchase a carton of milk. Unfortunately this routine shopping expedition was to become a traumatic encounter with security staff, who turned a minor dispute about whether Jameel was able to borrow a basket from the store, into a brutal beating which left this innocent shopper with multiple injuries. 

Once in the store, Jameel saw some items on offer, and so popped them in his basket, as well as the milk. 

Jameel then went to the checkout where he paid for his shopping. Having purchased more items than he had expected, and not having a bag with him, my client left the store with the goods still in the basket. He had shopped at the store on a regular basis for many years and simply intended to borrow the basket to transport his shopping home, and return it a few days later, on his next visit to the store.

 Jameel walked to his car and deposited the basket in his car boot. He then got into his car and proceeded to drive out of the car park.

 Before Jameel reached the exit, however, a uniformed security guard, indicated for him to stop, which he did. The guard informed my client that he could not take the basket, even just to transport his shopping home. After a brief discussion, Jameel acquiesced, parked up in an empty parking bay, and exited his car.

 However, as Jameel went to remove his shopping from the basket, the first security guard and another of his colleagues came up, and started jostling and pushing Jameel, apparently to get at the basket. They then proceeded to reach into the car boot and started pulling my client’s shopping out of the basket, damaging one of the food items in the process. It subsequently transpired that the security guards were employed by Mitie Security Ltd, a well- known security firm who sub-contract to firms nationwide. According to Mitie, it is “the UK’s biggest security provider” employing over 20,000 security personnel and its supermarket clients include Sainsburys, M&S and Co-op.

 Jameel tried to push the men away, to keep them off both himself and his property, protesting that they had no right to touch him or his belongings in the first place.

 Having emptied and discarded the basket, and feeling quite incensed about what had happened, my client then went into the store to complain about the behaviour of the security staff, who both followed him.

 Inside the shop, Jameel asked one of the store employees to call the manager and then began to explain to those staff members around him what had happened in the car park. The conversation became heated, and the security guards approached Jameel in an aggressive manner, with verbal insults and threats of violence. 

Matters then escalated further, with the two security staff grabbing Jameel and wrestling him to the ground. In the process, Jameel’s glasses were knocked off and he suffered a cut to his forehead. 

Jameel had to shout for the men to get off him and allow him up, which after a short period of time, they did.  A member of Sainsbury’s staff retrieved Jameel’s glasses and treated the cut on his head. 

Jameel was shell- shocked by what had been done to him, and the only consolation for him was that his teenage son was still in the car and had not had to witness this scene.

 The list of injuries that had been inflicted on Jameel was longer than his shopping list: a cut to the right side of his forehead; bruising and swelling of his forehead and right eye socket; bruises and scratches to the right side of his torso, around his armpit; bruising to both sides of his neck and to right shoulder; stiffness and discomfort in his right arm; a bruise and scrape on his back;  a friction burn on his chest; a bruised and swollen left thumb and a severe headache. The most persistent of these injuries were those to Jameel’s thumb and back, deemed by medical expert opinion to be an exacerbation of a pre-existing back complaint and an acceleration of a previously asymptomatic degenerative condition.

Before leaving Sainsbury’s, Jameel had spoken to the store manager about what had happened; the manager assured him that she would investigate the incident – but Jameel never heard from her again. 

How Jameel helped himself; and how I helped him Win

 Upon returning home, Jameel sensibly video- documented his injuries which is something I would always advise people to do in such situations; there is little that can beat early, contemporaneous evidence. He followed this up with an online GP consultation, to further record and obtain advice about his injuries. In taking these steps, and also in acting quickly to request (and therefore preserve) the CCTV footage of the incident, along with the security guards’ body camera footage (which would also contain the audio recording which is absent from CCTV) , Jameel had done everything right. A solicitor could not ask for a more organised and determined client. 

He was also quite right to approach the Police and make a criminal complaint against the security guards.  The Metropolitan Police not only refused to get involved; they informed Jameel that they had viewed the CCTV footage but that, in their judgement, he was the aggressor. Jameel was, understandably, deeply shocked by this false accusation and also the implied threat of the Police to prosecute him if he took the matter any further.  His faith and respect in the Police was deeply shaken by this outcome, and understandably so – but unfortunately, I have seen that type of behaviour from the Police too often to be surprised by it.  Many times, I have been involved in cases where, no matter how ‘Wild West’ the actions of private security guards/ bouncers are, the Police either take their side or refuse to get involved; acting as if they were the security industry’s ‘Big Brothers’, which in a way, of course, they are.  On the other side of the equation, all too many security guards are frustrated ‘mall cops’ with no proper training.  

Jameel further contacted the Sainsbury’s customer complaints team, whose front-line staff were sympathetic (“We’re a supermarket, not a night-club!”), but the case handler ultimately washed their hands of the matter and said that it was a ‘police matter’. This added to Jameel’s frustration and sense of betrayal after two decades of being a loyal customer.

Jameel told me that he has always had a strong moral code and sense of justice; he expected much better from a huge and reputable company such Sainsburys, and of course from the Metropolitan Police, but felt both were ultimately dishonest in their dealings with him and he felt not only deeply let down, but also angry.  

I helped him to channel that anger into a well-thought-out and well-fought civil claim against the principal culprits, Mitie Security.

Before Jameel consulted me, he had approached other well-known solicitors’ firms who heavily advertise their expertise in this type of case – including Minster Law and Irwin Mitchell – but all of those firms turned him down, and he was told that he didn’t have a winnable claim. When I reviewed the evidence, I begged to differ.

 I helped Jameel to appropriately bolster his claim, by astute legal argument. I also commissioned expert medical evidence, from both an orthopaedic surgeon and psychologist to help Jameel prove and quantify the full extent of his injuries. 

 In response to the claim which I presented on Jameel’s behalf, Mitie admitted ‘failings’, but made a puny initial offer of settlement in the sum of only £750.  

Ultimately, the combined efforts of myself and my client resulted in Mitie Security, who now had the threat of Court proceedings hanging over them, agreeing to pay Jameel damages in the sum of £18,500 plus his legal costs. 

This is another example of the type of teamwork I pride myself on: the courageous client and the expert solicitor combining to rebalance the scales of justice, when the Police themselves turn a blind eye. 

And once again we are reminded that so called security staff are often the biggest risks to the public in the places they are supposed to be protecting. That is a structural problem which arises from poor recruitment, management and training practices; but when the ‘mighty’ look the other way when these incidents and injuries occur, I am proud to use the common law to help the common man.

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please post a positive review on Trustpilot to get the word out. Every 5 star review I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

This is the second part of my blog post about Shane Price’s case. Read part one here.

Following the body-blow to my client of Lincolnshire Police’s Professional Standards Department’s rejection of his complaint – a total reversal of their original findings/ indications in the case – I assisted Shane Price in bringing a detailed appeal to the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC), known as the “right of review”. 

Allegation 1 – Excessive Force

Firstly, I highlighted the vast contrast between the complaint investigator’s conclusion that Inspector Mellor’s behaviour was “acceptable” and the mobile phone footage of the incident, which showed that Mellor had used totally unnecessary and excessive force throughout the encounter. The fact that Inspector Mellor was found not guilty of the criminal charge of Section 39 Assault arising from this incident (at trial at Nottingham Magistrates court on 11 May 2022) was of no real significance, as the test applied by the single Magistrate to the question of Inspector Mellor’s actions was whether it was evident he had committed the offence “beyond reasonable doubt”, whereas for the purposes of complaint investigation findings and, indeed, misconduct proceedings, the test was whether the officer had committed misconduct “on the balance of probabilities” – a much lower hurdle to be satisfied. 

It was quite manifest that the aggression – both verbal and physical – throughout this incident was flowing in one direction: from Inspector Mellor against my client, and my client only resorted to force after exhaustively pleading with the officer to let him go. My client was not under suspicion of any criminal offence and Mellor’s aggression towards him appears to originate in ‘road rage’ because of the earlier incident when they were driving – and my client’s accusations that Mellor had been using his mobile phone whilst driving. 

I also highlighted the fact that on 21 June 2021, following the initial notification of my client’s complaint, Chief Inspector Outen of PSD wrote to my client informing him that the case had been allocated to Inspector Gilmore and that Shane would: “ be given the opportunity to expand on or add any additional allegations when the investigating officer contacts you.” However, no such contact was made, nor opportunity offered to him. 

Of particular concern was the fact that that following the conclusion of the criminal proceedings, it appeared that the report had been substantially re-written to ‘support’ the opposite conclusion of PSD’s original findings, entirely undermining the integrity of the process and leaving my client with no faith in the system’s impartiality or fairness, and quite rightly so. 

Allegation 2 – Use of Mobile Phone Whilst Driving

 Once again, the contemporaneous video evidence spoke volumes in this regard, and no impartial observer of that footage could have reasonably concluded that it did not support a real suspicion that Inspector Mellor had been using his mobile phone whilst driving: that ‘everyday criminality’ on the modern roads which needs to be as strongly sanctioned and stamped down upon as the drink- driving of a previous generation was. 

Shane clearly believed that he had witnessed Inspector Mellor using his phone whilst driving – and asserted this on at least four separate occasions throughout the video, whilst his wife could also be heard making this assertion during her panicked emergency call. 

Notably, Mellor at no point at the footage denied this accusation, and, indeed, appeared to confirm it at one point when, in response to a comment by Shane he leant down and said : “I was trying to …[Inaudible]”)  to which my client immediately replied: “So that gives you the right to play on your phone?” 

Despite this strong evidence indicating that Mellor had been using his phone whilst driving – and that he was fully aware that Shane and his wife had witnessed this – the Complaint Investigator purported to conclude that it was not necessary to subject the officer’s mobile phone to forensic examination. This was an evidently unreasonable and disproportionate failing in the investigation. It was suggested that Inspector Mellor had shown his phone to Inspector Gilmore of PSD on 28 May 2021  – but this ‘informal’ inspection of the phone proved nothing; all that it indicated was that Gilmore looked at Mellor’s call history and camera roll, either of which could have been edited at the press of a button (particularly photos could have been deleted with extreme ease) during the two days that had passed since the incident. I think that we all know that a member of the public suspected of using his phone whilst driving, would not have been able to get away with such a tactic, and that this was a definite case of what we can appropriately term “Blue Privilege.” 

Police Dogs v Watch Dogs?

 I am pleased to confirm that in response to my submissions on Shane’s behalf, the IOPC upheld the appeal and recommended, by way of a decision dated April 2023, that Inspector Mellor face a misconduct hearing – albeit that he was now ex- Inspector Mellor, having been allowed by Lincolnshire Police to retire on a full pension during the interim between their ‘exoneration’ of him and the IOPC’s intervention. 

The IOPC review concluded that: 

• Mellor was “confrontational and hostile” from the outset of the incident, and “continuously displayed an intimidating and aggressive manner…despite [Shane] looking visibly shocked by the officer’s behaviour towards him.”
• Lincolnshire Police, in purporting to determine that Mellor had “no case to answer” for misconduct had inappropriately relied upon the outcome of the criminal case against the officer.
• the mobile phone footage conflicted significantly with Inspector Mellor’s account of the incident and that there was sufficient evidence that a reasonable tribunal could conclude that the Officer had conducted acts of gross misconduct.
• Mellor used “premeditated” force with the intention to “intimidate and physically injure” Shane.
• using a mobile phone whilst driving is a serious allegation, which deserved “robust investigation” by Lincolnshire Police, but they had failed to do so – and a gross misconduct charge was appropriate in this regard as well.
• Mellor’s rank of Inspector increased his culpability, as, quite rightly, Officers of that rank have a high standard to maintain as leaders, in a position of trust and responsibility.

The IOPC’s own enquiries also revealed the “highly unfortunate” fact that that there was no audio recording of Inspector Mellor’s Police interview undercaution, and the PSD investigator PS Pearson could not offer an explanation as to how this had happened. What is more, PS Pearson had deemed it unnecessary to review the audio files of the radio transmissions made between Inspector Mellor and other officers during the incident and the opportunity to have Mellor’s own mobile phone forensically examined had not been taken. Were these yet further examples of Blue Privilege?  

Civil Court and Misconduct Proceedings  

In the meantime, given Lincolnshire’s recalcitrance, I also commenced civil Court proceedings on behalf of Shane – as they had neither apologised, admitted liability nor offered any form of financial settlement for his injuries. 

In keeping with their combative stance to this matter, Lincolnshire filed a Defence entirely disputing Shane’s claim – and maintaining that Shane was the “verbal aggressor” putting Inspector Mellor in “fear for his own safety” after the Officer had helpfully tried to “guide” Shane away from the roadside for his own safety. It was asserted that all of Mellor’s actions were legitimate acts of self-defence and the brutal violence that we can see displayed in the mobile phone footage of the incident was dressed up under such disingenuous verbiage as “gaining compliance”. 

Lincolnshire Police also continued to fight against the IOPC’s recommendation – until such time as the Police Watchdog exercised their rarely used power to direct (not just “recommend”) that Mellor face misconduct proceedings, in September 2023.  This was in the face of the Police’s argument that the verdict in the Magistrates Court meant that my client now “lacked credibility” – a ridiculous assertion which to my mind could only be made by someone naïve in the ways of the legal system or who had an agenda to protect the Officer involved. Furthermore, and in any event, there was an objective witness in this matter whose credibility could, in no way, be impugned: the mobile phone and its audio/ visual record of the incident from start to finish. 

Whilst the misconduct hearing was pending, and notwithstanding their public denial of liability, Lincolnshire Police now began to put forwards settlement offers to Shane: firstly, an offer of £15,000 in September 2023; and then more than doubling this to £31,000 damages in January 2024, both of which offers Shane rapidly rejected on my advice. The offers went nowhere near the level required to reflect the seriousness of the wrongdoing in this case – including, what I consider to be, an attempted Police cover-up of Mellor’s misconduct – and the physical, but above all psychological, harm that had been caused to my client. I commissioned expert medical evidence in this regard, to help Shane recover every penny to which he was entitled.   

Whilst the misconduct proceedings were ongoing, Lincolnshire withdrew their ‘top offer’ of £31,000 in an apparent attempt to intimidate Shane, but my client showed great courage and fortitude – and faith in my advice – by not backing down, and continuing to pursue the Court proceedings. He was prepared to go all the way to trial, if necessary, no matter how stressful he knew that experience was going to be for him, having already been through the “wringer” of being a witness in the Magistrate’s Court and hearing the judicial approbation of his opponent. 

In January 2025, the Misconduct Hearing finally took place, and Mellor was, at last, found guilty of gross misconduct for his assault upon Shane. Mellor had been fighting tooth and nail against this verdict and had, notably, made an application to dismiss the misconduct proceedings against him as an “abuse of process” – on the basis, Mellor asserted, that senior officers in the Force had assured him, after the conclusion of the criminal trial, that the misconduct matter would also be put to bed, and that this was evidenced in a press release issued by Lincolnshire Police on 26 July 2022 which had stated “As a result of this finding [the Magistrates verdict] Inspector Mellor will not face any internal misconduct proceedings.” 

So it seems that in this respect, both Inspector Mellor and I agree – that there was a shameless attempt by Lincolnshire PSD/ the wider Force to ‘cover up’ his actions and ensure that he faced no misconduct charges, despite the weight of evidence to the contrary; evidence which frankly seems to have shocked the IOPC and caused them to impel the Police to do the right thing – no matter what ‘top- level’ assurances they had given Mellor to the contrary. 

Thankfully, these arguments were given short shrift by the Misconduct Panel, led by Legally Qualified Chairperson Jennifer Ferrario, who found that Lincolnshire Police had no jurisdiction to give any such assurances, which could not be binding upon the IOPC’s subsequent direction, and that there was no “unfairness” in this result. 

For once, indeed, the Independent Office of Police Conduct had lived up to its title. I wish we could see more of this kind of robust decision making on their part. 

At the conclusion of the two-day Misconduct Hearing, the Panel found that Mellor had “demonstrated inability to control himself”, or to hold himself accountable for his wrongdoing and strongly criticised his evidence as “lacking in credibility” of his evidence – an interesting reversal of fortunes from the Magistrates Court, where such an accusation had been levelled at Shane. The Officer would have been immediately dismissed from the Force, if he had not already retired, and was placed on the Police Barred List. 

Victory at the End of the Road

 Following the misconduct verdicts, Lincolnshire Police returning seriously to the negotiating table, first offering Shane a settlement of £50,000 damages, which he rejected on my advice,  then increasing this to £60,000, and then £70,000 – all of which proposals we again rejected. 

As Shane’s civil claim was prepared for trial, it was of note that Lincolnshire Police, whilst still ostensibly maintaining their denial of any wrongdoing on the Officer’s part, chose not to call him as a witness; a decision which I think speaks for itself. 

To increase the pressure upon our opponents, I made an application for further disclosure of documents from the Police, specifically relating to their ‘internal investigation’ of the complaint, and handling of the misconduct proceedings, which was granted by the judge at the Pre-Trial Review hearing.

Only now, when we were virtually at the doors of Court, did Lincolnshire Police agree terms of settlement which were acceptable to my client – payment of damages in the sum of £100,000 plus his legal costs. 

Victory was achieved, at the end of a long road, and all the more welcome for Shane because of the duration of the journey and the hazards he had faced along the way – from the “red mist” of an enraged officer to the “blue privilege” accorded to that officer by the criminal court and his Police colleagues.

Thankfully, as a combined result of my strenuous pursuit of the civil claim and the IOPC’s robust response to our appeal, justice has been done for Shane – and the wrong that began at the roadside in such a brutal fashion, has finally been put right.

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please post a positive review on Trustpilot to get the word out. Every 5 star review I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

In January of this year I blogged about the case of my client Shane Price who was subjected to a brutal road-side assault on the A46 in Lincolnshire in May 2021 after he became involved in a dispute with another driver – a driver who turned out to be (then) Lincolnshire Police Inspector Jonathan Mellor. 

In my January post, I reported how former Inspector Mellor had been found guilty of gross misconduct in relation to this incident, although only after a torturous and long drawn out process, which had led both Inspector Mellor and myself to the same conclusion – namely that senior Officers in the Force had promised to ‘protect’ him from misconduct charges after this incident; in the end they did not, and so there the opinions of myself and Mr Mellor as to the outcome of events diverged dramatically.  Yet this was no thanks to the Police themselves – the A46, it turned out, was not a ‘road to Damascus’, and after Lincolnshire Police attempted to quash my client’s legitimate complaint, it was only because of my client’s courage and persistence, coupled with my legal advice and assistance, that former Inspector Mellor was ever brought to justice. We utilised the appeal channels of the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC), which on this occasion resulted in a rare IOPC intervention; the Police “Watchdog” barring its teeth to force Lincolnshire Police to proceed with the gross misconduct charges against Inspector Mellor, when it was clear that the Police themselves simply wanted to let him settle into a happy retirement.

In my earlier blog, I promised that I would discuss the full circumstances of this case once Shane’s claim for damages against Lincolnshire Police was settled and now indeed I can – as I am proud to confirm that I have recently concluded Shane’s claim for damages in the sum of £100,000, plus legal costs.

The thin red line: Inspector attacks an injured man over a minor driving dispute

I have written before about the sinister coupling which occurs when the ‘red mist’ descends upon a person who is also a member of the ‘thin blue line’; Police Officers whose loss of control of their temper is accompanied, and even facilitated by a sense of impunity, borne out of an expectation that their actions will be excused, condoned or covered up by their ‘brother Officers’ in the wider Police Force.

All too often, such Police Officers correctly assume that the “Professional Standards Department” of their Force will – rather than rigorously investigating complaints and pursuing misconduct charges “without fear or favour” towards their fellow Officers – be batting on the same side as those Officers, as members of the same Police team.  It is this problem which lies at the heart of the dysfunctionality of the Police Complaint System, an ongoing thorn in the side of UK justice which I have very regularly had occasion to blog about. 

My client Shane Price is of Romany Gypsy heritage, and was at the time of these events in May 2021 a self-employed gardener/tree surgeon.  Four days before the incident which occurred on 26 May 2021, Shane had sustained a laceration injury to his left foot whilst using a chainsaw, for which he had had to seek medical assistance, including a tetanus injection and prescription of antibiotics. 

On the evening of 26 May Shane was driving his father’s truck, a Ford transit van, along the A46, a dual carriageway with a 70mph speed limit towards Lincoln.   Travelling as a front seat passenger in the van was Shane’s then wife. 

At one stage in the journey, Shane moved into the outside lane in order to perform a routine overtaking manoeuvre around a slower vehicle in the inside lane of the carriageway.  However, he noticed a Ford car, which was travelling behind him in the outside lane, suddenly speed up and begin flashing its headlights/ sounding its horn at him.

Having completed his overtaking manoeuvre, Shane naturally moved back into the inside lane. 

The Ford car then came alongside Shane’s van (the Ford was continuing to drive in the outside lane) and as it did so, the driver of the Ford appeared to use his mobile phone to take a photograph of Shane and his wife, before accelerating past and then pulling into the inside lane in front of Shane’s van. 

Unbeknownst to Shane at that time, the driver of the Ford was then- Inspector Jonathan Mellor of Lincolnshire Police, who was on duty, but was driving his personal vehicle, rather than a Police car.

My client understandably considered that the Ford driver’s use of his mobile phone whilst driving was dangerous, and so he now, in turn, flashed his headlights at the Ford and signalled for its driver to pull up so he could speak to him. 

Accordingly, the two vehicles pulled over.

Inspector Mellor and Shane exited their vehicles and walked towards each other.

Shane noted that Inspector Mellor was wearing a black jacket and was carrying a radio, and formed the impression that he was a security guard.  He could not see anything on Inspector Mellor’s clothing to indicate that he was a Police Officer, and nor did Mellor identify himself as such.

Shane began to ask Inspector Mellor why he had taken a photograph of him and pointed out that doing such whilst driving was illegal.  To this, the Officer of the law gave the considered reply: “Get back in your vehicle or I’m going to fuck you.”

Shane was taken aback at the level of aggression which was so suddenly being shown towards him, but this was only the beginning of the Inspector’s disgraceful conduct. 

Whilst my shocked client continued to try to speak reasonably to the Officer, Mellor grabbed hold of Shane’s arms and violently pulled him to the nearby grass verge. 

In the process of doing this, Inspector Mellor grabbed Shane by the neck and then pushed him backwards towards a fence.

When Shane was against the fence, Mellor again put his left hand on Shane’s throat.  Increasingly concerned, Shane told his aggressor that he had an injury to his left foot, and protested that Mellor was assaulting him.

Inspector Mellor, meanwhile, despite the fact that he had initiated the violence, and despite the fact that Shane was trying to reason with him rather than fight back, now used his radio to call for ‘back up’.

Shane repeatedly asked the Inspector to move his hand away from his throat, and attempted to push the Inspector’s hand away from him, to no avail.  Instead, Mellor threatened my client with the words “I will fucking put you down!”.

Sometimes rogue Police Officers are referred to as ‘thugs in uniform’.  This would not be an appropriate phrase to use about Inspector Mellor, however, as he was not wearing a uniform.

The Officer did then release his grip on Shane, and stepped back – but only to throw a punch into Shane’s face with his fist, using considerable force.

Inspector Mellor then grappled with Shane, punching and kneeing him whilst shouting “Get the fuck down!”

Shane asked what the Officer was possibly doing, and tried to defend himself.  The Officer continued to escalate his actions rather than calm them, however. He now grabbed Shane’s arms and delivered an excruciatingly painful stamp to Shane’s left foot – a stamp which Shane could only believe was a deliberate cruelty, in view of the fact that he had just told the Officer about his existing injury.

Inspector Mellor now pinned Shane down on the ground, shouting at him “You have been fucking pulled haven’t you?  Stay down!”

Shane was finding it difficult to breathe under the weight of Inspector Mellor, and complained that he could not breathe a number of times.  He could barely believe what was happening to him.

Meanwhile, Shane’s wife – who had remained in the van – made a distressed call to 999 reporting that a man (whom of course she did not know was a Police Officer) had assaulted her husband for no reason.

Fortunately, Shane’s wife had also been recording the incident on her mobile phone.  I have said before and I will say it again how invaluable our mobile phones are in exposing Police misconduct and holding Officers to account in situations in which, in the world before mobile phones, they would almost literally have been able to pull rank on ordinary civilians – all persons being equal, but Police persons being more equal than others when it came to ‘one person’s word against another’ testimony.

I attach below the shocking video footage showing just how this incident unfolded.

Officers to the Rescue – of Inspector Mellor

Leaving Shane on the ground, Inspector Mellor then walked to his vehicle and returned dangling a pair of handcuffs. It was at this stage that Shane realised that Mellor was probably a Police Officer, but Mellor had still not actually identified himself as such, and did not do so even when he returned with the handcuffs.

A large number of Police vehicles now began to arrive and uniformed Officers poured out of them – Inspector Mellor’s ‘back-up’; in a semi-farcical, but also malevolent reversal of their true purpose, all of these Officers were here to assist the aggressor in this incident, rather than the injured man lying defenceless on the ground.

Indeed, one of the newly arrived Officers now approached Shane, put his knee on my client’s back and handcuffed him in the ‘rear stack’ position.

Despite my client and his wife’s attempts to explain the true events – including the fact that Shane’s wife had the whole incident on video on her phone, immediately available for anyone to see – the Officers were only interested in what their colleague Inspector Mellor was telling them, and one of them, PC Key, now informed Shane that he was under arrest. 

Indeed, one of the Officers now pulled the old trick of claiming that he could smell cannabis from Shane’s vehicle.  My client, who knew he was innocent, told the Officers that they could drug test him to which the Officer replied: “We are going to, don’t worry”.

This drugs test was then indeed carried out on Shane, of course producing a negative result. 

Shane requested an ambulance, as it felt as though his foot was bleeding, and he explained that Inspector Mellor had ‘jumped’ on it for no reason.  The Officers who were holding him captive were not prepared to entertain calling an ambulance, and told Shane that he would only get to see a doctor whilst he was in custody. 

Before being placed into one of the Police vans, Shane volunteered to the Officers that he had a small knife on him, which he used to cut rope during the course of his work and the Officers took this item from him.  Shane was then locked into the ‘cage’ in the rear section of the Police van.

PC Key remained outside the van and began to inspect Shane’s knife.  One of the other Officers claimed that the knife was not for cutting ropes, asserting that he himself had experience as a tree surgeon.  A female Officer then commented “Offensive weapon – excellent!”

Sadly, this was not just a bad joke.  PC Key now re-opened the doors to the van and informed Shane that he was further under arrest for possession of “an offensive weapon” and the doors to the van were then shut again in his face.

It was quite transparent whose side the assembled Police Officers were all on, and that they were actively looking for any excuse to ‘criminalise’ Shane, whilst treating Inspector Mellor as, well – one of the gang.

All of this was on the basis of Inspector Mellor’s flimsy ‘say so’ that Shane had first caused him to pull over, and had then pushed him.  All of this was apparently ‘lapped up’ by the Officers at the scene, who on the other hand were studiously ignoring Shane’s wife’s video of the incident.

Shane was then taken away to Lincoln Police Station.

Playing For the Blue Team

Shane was booked into custody.  He told the Sergeant that he wanted to make a complaint, and take Inspector Mellor to court.  At this stage however, all the mechanisms of the justice system were aimed at Shane, not Mellor.  Shane was informed that he was under arrest for “assaulting an emergency worker”.

The twisted version of events recorded in the custody record was as follows –

“THE D/P [Detained Person] WAS DRIVING A FORD TRANSIT TIPPER  ALONG THE A46 TOWARDS LINCOLN. THE D/P HAS REPEATEDLY FLASHED HIS LIGHTS AT INSP. MELLOR WHO WAS IN HIS PERSONAL VEHICLE IN FRONT OF THE D/P. BOTH THE VEHICLES HAVE THEN PULLED INTO THE SLIP LANE AT THORPE ON THE HILL. THE D/P HAS THEN CONFRONTED INSP MELLOR WHO HAS HELD OUT HIS HAND AND THE D/P HAS PUSHED HIM. A SCUFFLE HAS THEN ENSUED RESULTING IN THE D/P BEING DETAINED PENDING ARRIVAL OF OTHER OFFICERS. FOLLOWING ARREST A SMALL KNIFE WAS FOUND ON THE D/P.”

Thereafter, my client was finally allowed to see a health care professional (HCP) in relation to his foot injury.

There would be far fewer episodes of police misconduct, and fewer wrongful arrests of innocent members of the public if it wasn’t for what we might call “Blue Team” thinking i.e. officers  not only displaying a lack of objectivity when they come across a conflict situation between ‘one of their own’ and a member of the public but actively wanting to support the case of the other officer.  This was summed up by a conversation between PC Key and a female officer (captured on body worn video) in relation to Shane’s arrest in which PC Key stated “I am not going to believe him [Shane] over the Inspector …..” and “use of force wise, I think Jonny [Inspector Mellor] will be alright, provided he’s  [Shane] assaulted him first ….  in fear of immediate violence……” .

After spending a miserable night in the cells, Shane was interviewed under caution the next morning and then released under investigation.

The attitude and behaviour of Lincolnshire Police so far had made it very clear that they were keen to believe Inspector Mellor’s version of events, and to criminalise my client as a result.  However, Shane had a very strong piece of objective evidence that he was able to call upon i.e. the incontrovertible testimony of the mobile phone footage which his wife had filmed from the van, depicting the incident at the roadside from start to finish. Although PC Key and his colleagues had not bothered to review this footage at the scene, the police could not bury their hands in the sand about it for ever.

On 28 May 2021 Chief Inspector Outen assessed Inspector Mellor’s conduct, following an initial complaint having been made by Shane’s father. Chief Inspector Outen considered that “escalation [of the incident had] come solely from Inspector Mellor” and that the force used by him was excessive, deliberate and gratuitous.  Chief Inspector Outen assessed the officer’s conduct as potentially amounting to misconduct and recommended that Inspector Mellor be removed from operational interactions with the public in the meantime.

Indeed, on 21 June 2021, Chief Inspector Outen recorded that a formal investigation was required, and it was now considered that there was an indication that Inspector Mellor may have committed a criminal offence. Significantly, by this time, there had been widespread news coverage of the incident, as the video taken by Shane’s wife had been circulated on Facebook and I suspect that the Police felt that in the glare of the media spotlight, they had to be seen to be taking robust action. If the cat had not been out of the bag, in the form of the phone footage, would criminal charges against the officer have been brought at all? The subsequent response of the Police to the outcome of those criminal proceedings may hold the answer to that question, as I will come to later.

On 9 September 2021, Inspector Mellor completed a prepared statement for the purposes of his own interview, in which he falsely denied using his mobile phone whilst driving and falsely denied assaulting Shane. Furthermore, within that statement, Inspector Mellor made reference to his “knowledge of the Briggs-Price family” (not actually my client’s family) and referred to them as a “criminal family”, which had no relevance to the incident itself, but which appeared to be an attempt to prejudice Shane in the eyes of others by drawing a link between his Romany ethnicity and criminality, a form of racist dog- whistle.  

In early November 2021 a decision was made to take no further action against Shane in relation to the trumped-up allegations of assault and ‘possession of an offensive weapon’ and, then, later that month,  the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) authorised the charging of Inspector Mellor with an offence of assault against Shane, contrary to section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. The tables had now decisively turned – or so it seemed at the time.

Inspector Mellor was thereafter suspended from duty, until the criminal case against him was resolved.  

My client now had a mounting sense that justice was going to be done; that the system was working in his favour.  In March 2022, Shane was informed by Police Sergeant Pearson of Lincolnshire Police’s Professional Standards Department (PSD) that he had completed his complaint investigation report and that the Appropriate Authority (i.e. the senior officer whose job it is to sign off the report) had concluded that Inspector Mellor had a case to answer for gross misconduct in respect of both his uses of force against Shane and his  use of his mobile phone whilst driving.

Sadly, this sense of victory for Shane – that he was being believed by the powers that be, and that Inspector Mellor was properly being held to account – soon afterwards turned to ashes in his mouth.  On 11 May 2022 the trial of Inspector Mellor took place at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court, where my client gave evidence against the officer, and the video footage of the incident was played – but where nevertheless, at the conclusion of the trial, Mellor was acquitted. It was recorded by the presiding judge, District Judge Ikram, that the Crown had “not disproved self-defence”. Inspector Mellor himself proudly declared that his view that his actions were “careful, proportionate and necessary” had been vindicated.

I will pause here to observe how I have had to blog before about how the pro-police attitudes of the judiciary at large have a tendency to give police officers accused of assaulting members of the public, maybe not the Seven Lives of a cat in Court – but certainly more than the rest of us have.

My client then received a yet further body blow – and one that was perhaps, in context, even more shocking – as PS Pearson now revised the complaint investigation report, apparently in light of the criminal verdict, and despite the fact that, whilst criminal actions must be proven “beyond reasonable doubt”, whether an officer has committed professional misconduct is assessed on the much lower standard of the “balance of probabilities”, he now purported to find that Inspector Mellor did not have a case to answer in respect of either the use of his mobile phone or assault upon Shane.  Unbelievably, it seemed that the complaint investigator had reversed his own findings, despite the fact that no new evidence had come to light, and simply on the basis that Mellor had not been found guilty in the criminal court.  That fact alone, should have had no bearing on the misconduct process – and the actions of Lincolnshire Police’s Professional Standards Department now, in my opinion, demonstrated a total lack of integrity. It was the disingenuous act of those who must have known better to naively pretend that a verdict of “not guilty” in a criminal court equates to a professional conduct ‘exoneration’. Not guilty is, by its very nature, a negative verdict; it means that criminal guilt was not proven, not that innocence was, or that a person has now been certified as an angel.  

PS Pearson’s re-writing of the report was approved by Superintendent Clark, the Head of Professional Standards, who wrote to inform Shane of the ‘new’ outcome on 4 July 2022.

Furthermore, in or around June or July 2022, Inspector Mellor was allowed to retire from the Force, presumably with a full pension entitlement; thanks to the second version of the complaint report, the officer had now been ‘cleared’ of the misconduct charges that were hanging over him.

I am sure you can appreciate how this left my client feeling. Having been beaten up by the side of the road, he had been wrongfully arrested and spent the night nursing his injuries in a police cell. Then, when it finally seemed that the Police were on his side and were working to hold Inspector Mellor to account – he had been abandoned by them. It seemed to me that the innate reluctance of the police to discipline one of their own comrades had been let loose as soon as Lincolnshire Police had an excuse – no matter how flimsy; in this case, the “not guilty” verdict in the Magistrates’ Court.

In the opinion of myself and Shane this was a travesty of justice and, indeed, a corruption of the police complaints process. The original assessment of Mellor’s actions as amounting to misconduct should not have been contaminated by either the comments or verdict of the criminal court; the fact that they were, spoke to me volumes about how reluctant the police were to bring misconduct charges in the first place against ‘Jonny’ Mellor.  It seemed that PSD felt that they had been forced into making adverse findings against Mellor because of the strength of the video evidence – but their lack of commitment to that position is demonstrated by how quickly they jumped ship when, frankly, they thought that both they and Inspector Mellor could get away with it.

Both Shane and I, however, were completely determined not to let either Inspector Mellor or his Force off the hook, and in Part Two of this blog I will address the actions we now took, and explain how Shane was able to get up off the floor – and win this fight.

Read Part 2 of this blog post here.

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please post a positive review on Trustpilot to get the word out. Every 5 star review I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

In the news this week was a disturbing case involving the brutal treatment of a 16-year-old girl by a serving Nottinghamshire Police officer; sadly demonstrating how some Officers cannot restrain their inner demons of anger and violence, even when it comes to dealing with children. 

PC Kevin Markowski, aged 47, has been dismissed from the force without notice after a misconduct panel found he had used “unnecessary and disproportionate” force during an incident in Arnold, Nottinghamshire, in August 2022. That forensic phrase – ‘unnecessary and disproportionate’ – is a bloodless and bureaucratic piece of jargon, which disguises shocking details. According to findings from the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), the officer banged the teenage girl’s head against a police vehicle and placed his hands on her throat—not once, but twice—while restraining her in the back of the car. 

The incident began after the girl became involved in what has been described as a verbal altercation in the street. She was detained on suspicion of breaching the peace and placed in a police vehicle. Despite being only 16 years old and clearly vulnerable, she was later handcuffed, and the situation escalated in a manner that is deeply concerning. 

Body-worn video evidence showed PC Markowski with his hands on the girl’s neck or upper chest area. She later told investigators she had been strangled and reported struggling to breathe. Markowski claimed his hands were positioned on her ‘upper chest’ and denied impeding her breathing. He also argued that the force used was reasonable in the circumstances. 

However, the disciplinary panel disagreed, and the outcome of the misconduct hearing was unequivocal: PC Markowski had significantly breached professional standards relating to duties and responsibilities, use of force, and discreditable conduct. He was also found to have behaved in a “disrespectful and discourteous” manner when he refused to give his collar number to a concerned member of the public during the same incident. Markowski has now been placed on the police barred list, effectively, and correctly, ending his career in law enforcement. 

Nottinghamshire Police issued an apology to the girl and her family, acknowledging the distress caused and affirming the force’s commitment to public accountability. Temporary Deputy Chief Constable Rob Griffin stated: 

“The panel found that Markowski’s actions were unnecessary and disproportionate and that his dismissal is necessary for maintaining public trust and confidence in policing.” 

This is yet another case which demonstrates how helpful body worn video footage is, not only in assisting the legitimate actions of the Police, but also in furthering the societal good of “policing the police.” How many times, in the analogue- era before the existence of body cameras, would the predecessors of PC Markowski been able to get away with this type of brutality, hiding behind the protection of “he said, she said” with no objective way of favouring the teenager’s word against that of a sworn constable?   

It is also worth noting that PC Markowski was acquitted in a separate criminal trial at Lincoln Crown Court in June 2023,  where a jury found him not guilty of strangulation. However, the threshold for criminal conviction is understandably high – the case must be proven beyond reasonable doubt – and Police officers charged with crimes of violence often find themselves in front of highly sympathetic courts. Misconduct proceedings apply a different standard—based on the balance of probabilities—as, of course, do civil claims for compensation; and quite rightfully so: justice can be achieved via alternative routes.   

Sadly, incidents such as this are not isolated. I have represented many young clients who have suffered unnecessary arrests  and excessive force at the hands of Police Officers, including such shameful mistreatment as the handcuffing of a non- violent 13 year old boy  the use of tasers against children as young as 10  and unjustified strip- searches.   

 Abuse of power is never more vile than when it is perpetrated against the most powerless.

Last month, former Surrey PC, Ross Martin, narrowly avoided prison following his admitted misconduct in public office — namely, sending sexually inappropriate messages to a vulnerable victim of crime.  

While Martin is no longer a serving officer — having resigned three days before a misconduct panel formally dismissed him, his name added to that roster of shame known as the “Police Barred List” – his actions remain a clear example of how power can be misused in the most egregious way. 

A Disturbing Abuse of Trust

 As someone who has represented many victims of police misconduct, I find this case sadly familiar. When a police officer uses their position not to protect a vulnerable person, but to exploit them, the betrayal of trust is profound — not only for the individual concerned but also for public confidence in policing as a whole.

Police officers are given considerable authority: to detain, to investigate, to access sensitive information, and to enter into the most intimate spaces of people’s lives, often at their lowest moments. With that authority must come a higher standard of behaviour — not just lawful conduct, but moral integrity.

 In this case, the victim was someone already identified as vulnerable. Martin’s behaviour was not a one-off lapse but a pattern of sexualised communication over two weeks. That’s calculated exploitation. 

Consequences — But Are They Sufficient?

The suspended sentence has already raised eyebrows; the fact that Martin will not spend a single night in prison may be seen as an insufficiently “chilling” deterrence to other officers tempted to transgress.

Women who have dialled “999” for help from the Police, should not have to fear that they may have also dialled “666” and invited a devil into their lives. 

Systemic Questions Remain 

Detective Chief Inspector James Ansell, of Surrey Police’s anti-corruption unit, has said that crimes committed by officers “simply cannot be condoned”.

That is a welcome sentiment. But words alone won’t prevent future abuse. What mechanisms failed that allowed Martin’s conduct to go undetected for two weeks? Were there missed red flags or failures in supervision? Were the recruitment and vetting procedures which let him into the Police in the first place sufficiently robust and thorough? 

Most police officers serve with dedication and integrity. But it only takes a few — as I’ve seen too often in my legal practice — to inflict lasting damage on victims and erode public confidence. 

Legal Recourse for Victims

For victims of police misconduct, the criminal process is just one part of the story. Civil claims against the police — for misfeasance in public office, breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (inhuman or degrading treatment), or breaches of data protection and privacy — may offer a route to compensation and formal acknowledgement of wrongdoing in cases of this nature. 

No one should be victimised by the very people they turn to for protection.

Please read here the anonymised stories of some of the women whom I have helped after they suffered this form of abuse: 

• Julia, a domestic violence victim who won £14,500 damages after PC Latimer of Cambridgeshire Police exploited his knowledge of her case to attempt to groom her;
• Nicola, who won £17,000 from West Yorkshire Police after a Crime Scene Investigator called Daniel Cordwell, attending her home after a burglary, kissed her without her consent;
• Sally, another domestic violence victim, who recovered compensation of £45,000, and a written apology, from Devon & Cornwall Police after PCSO Bunyan exploited his ‘white knight’ role to groom her into a sexual relationship;
• Karen, who recovered £10,000 from Merseyside Police after PC Campbell sexually harassed her whilst carrying out a ‘child welfare’ check at her home;
• Josie and Lisa, who were both abused by the same predatory officer, DC McMillan of Merseyside Police;
• Kate, who won £25,000 from Merseyside Police, after she had reported a man who was sexually exploiting young women and girls, and was then herself subject to a campaign of sexual harassment by text message from the investigating Officer, DS Stubbs;
• Clare, a young, vulnerable victim of domestic abuse who recovered £25,000 compensation after she was groomed and sexually exploited by a serving Police Officer, PC Powell;
• Gemma, who recovered £22,500 from Thames Valley Police after the officer allocated to her case, PC Green, pestered and harassed her with flirtatious and personal messages; 
• Harriet, yet another domestic violence victim who won £25,000 from West Midlands Police https://iaingould.co.uk/2024/12/09/the-toxic-problem-of-red-blooded-males-on-the-thin-blue-line/  after her treatment by PC Noble proved to be anything but noble.

If you believe you have suffered abuse or misconduct at the hands of a police officer, you are not alone — and you are not without recourse. I specialise in representing victims of police wrongdoing. Please get in touch for a confidential discussion.

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please post a positive review on Trustpilot to get the word out. Every 5 star review I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

This week’s blog post concerns a strange and concerning circumstance: a person arrested purely so that her DNA could be ‘harvested’ for the Police biometrics database – after she had previously provided a DNA sample, but the sample had subsequently ‘failed’ the Police lab test. 

In August 2022, my client Alice was arrested by Nottinghamshire Police on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.  She was taken to a Police Station. 

This was the first and only time Alice had had any dealings with the Police, let alone been arrested and she was naturally very embarrassed and distressed. 

During her time in Custody, Alice was obliged to provide her fingerprints and a DNA sample, which is a routine process governed by Section 63 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), and with which Alice fully co- operated.

Thereafter, Alice was released from custody and tried to put this unpleasant experience behind her. In May 2023, Alice moved house, and as many of us do, set up a postal re-direct from her old address with Royal Mail.  

Then, one evening in mid- August 2023, over a year after Alice’s initial arrest, two Police Officers turned up unannounced at Alice’s home and, to her absolute shock, arrested her. The Officers were vague as to the reason for arrest other than it related to the DNA sample which my client had provided in August 2022. 

Alice was devastated; she was led outside of her home and ushered into a marked Police car in view of her neighbours – an extremely shameful ‘no smoke without fire’ experience. She was transported back to the Police Station where she had been dealt with the previous year. 

According to the Custody Record, Alice had been arrested for alleged failure “to comply with request of a Police Officer or other authorised persons for fingerprints/photographs/both”. 

The circumstances of arrest were described as “DP [Detained Person] circulated to obtain DNA”.  And the arrest necessity reason was stated to be: “Prevent the disappearance of the person”. 

A little while later, it was further recorded that “Detention is authorised for the purpose of S37(3) PACE – secure/preserve evidence; S63A PACE re-sampling”. 

Alice was incarcerated in a holding cell and then later obliged to (again) give her fingerprints and DNA sample and to be photographed. Only then was she released and allowed to return home, understandably traumatised by an event which I consider was nothing less than the trampling of her liberty and individuality under the boot-heel of Police biometric bureaucracy. 

Several days later, Alice received a letter from Nottinghamshire Police dated the day before her arrest, sent to her previous address and which had been redirected. The letter stated as follows:

“I am contacting you in regard to an incident that you were involved in whereby you were involved in an RTC and subsequently were found to be over the prescribed limit for alcohol. 

 During your time in custody, you would have had your DNA taken which is standard procedure for any person who is arrested and taken to custody. 

This DNA has failed, therefore you are required to attend your nearest Nottinghamshire Police Custody Suite. 

This requirement for DNA forms part of PACE which is the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and falls under Code G. 

I must remind you that due to this DNA requirement I have circulated you on the Police National Computer, therefore it is recommended that you attend Mansfield Custody Suite as soon as possible, where your DNA will be re taken and this matter will be closed”. 

This was the first and only time that Alice had received any correspondence suggesting that the sample taken in August 2022 had “failed”. It later transpired that the reason for this failure was not a scientific fluke or computer glitch, but good old fashioned Police incompetence – they had failed to seal the bag containing the sample properly.

In response, Alice wrote to request clarification as regards the circumstances of her arrest. She received a reply from Nottinghamshire Police’s Professional Standards Department, which suggested that a letter advising of the failure of the DNA sample had first been sent to her in June 2023 – but she had not received that letter, and nor was there any explanation at all as to why it had taken over 10 months for the letter to be sent, after the initial sample was taken. The Police also admitted that they were unable to produce that alleged June letter as “no copy was saved.” 

It was also asserted that the Officer who wrote the letter which Alice did receive in August 2023 had at the same time circulated an arrest request for Alice, without giving her a chance to respond “he didn’t expect officers to act on the circulation for arrest as quick as they did…” 

In a later account, Nottinghamshire Police also sought to defend their officer’s decision to arrest Alice at her home by seeking to argue that although Alice asserted that she had not received the June 2023 letter – “as she could not confirm whether this was the case…the arrest was necessary to prevent [Alice’s] disappearance.” How on Earth, one may ask, is one supposed to ‘confirm’ the non- receipt of a letter? (A letter, lest we not forget, which the Police apparently had no copy of either). 

The Keystone Cops, it seems, are still alive and well, even in this age of DNA databases and word processing…

Had Alice actually received the Police letter before her arrest, she would of course have attended a local Police Station on a voluntary basis to provide a further sample. Yet further, even on the night itself there was no need to arrest Alice – although she was shocked and confused, she would have accompanied the Officers to the Police Station on a voluntarily basis – arrest was simply not required. 

Sadly,

1. the Officer who circulated the arrest request,
2. the pair of Officers who attended Alice’s home and arrested her, and
3. the Custody Sergeant who approved her detention,

were all guilty of block-headed, insensitive and ‘robotic’ Policing – apparently acting not for the ‘Greater good’ but for the ‘Data good.’

It was clear to me, when I reviewed Alice’s case that there was absolutely no necessity to arrest her in August 2023 – no reasonable basis for presuming that she would not voluntarily co- operate – and that therefore her arrest was unlawful as being in violation of Section 24 and Code G of PACE (the Necessity test).  

I am pleased to confirm that in response to my detailed arguments and presentation of her claim, Nottinghamshire Police admitted that they unlawfully arrested Alice and have recently agreed to pay her significant compensation, plus her legal costs. 

The original offence for which Alice was arrested was a relatively low-level one, and why the Police deemed it necessary to ensure that they had Alice’s DNA on their database is beyond me; the building up of a library of the most intimate building blocks of our bodies should not become a goal in itself for our Police Forces – especially not at the cost of a person’s liberty in such outrageous circumstances as these. 

As ever, sometimes the most important thing you can do with power, is not use it. 

My client’s name has been changed.

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please post a positive review on Trustpilot to get the word out. Every 5 star review I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

The College of Policing’s National decision model for professional practice enjoins Police Officers to put the Code of Ethics at the heart and centre of their decision making and quite correctly highlights respect and empathy as core principals – “Encouraging, listening to and understanding the views of others and seeking to recognise and respond to the physical, mental and emotional challenges that we and other people may face”. 

Autism, or Autism Spectrum Disorder, is a condition now understood to be widespread amongst the population and which can affect people to a greater or lesser degree; it is not an impairment of intellectual function but rather of communicative ability, body-language cues and ease of social interaction. As a result, autistic people often seem to be on a different ‘wavelength’ than others and have to cope as ‘outsiders’ in social situations, particularly stressful public ones, and should be accorded the time, space and compassion to allow them to do so on their own terms. The National Autistic Society offer guidance for Police officers dealing with autistic people, which includes the following key recommendations – 

• Allowing the person time to process information, and not demanding an immediate response to instructions;
• Being sensible and sensitive about the reasons someone may be avoiding ‘normal’ eye contact – not jumping to a conclusion of guilt or ‘obstructiveness’;
• Not shouting at the person;
• Not subjecting them to emergency lights and sirens;
• Avoiding physical contact if at all possible. 

That is surely what the National decision model would also require of the ‘platonic ideal’ of a Police Officer; unfortunately, the treatment that my client Daniel received from an Officer of Lancashire Constabulary in the incident which is the subject of today’s blog post, was very far from ideal because those vices which so often underpin what we might call the ‘Nasty Decision Model’ of policing – egotism, anger and insensitivity –  caused this Officer to treat my client as though autism itself was some sort of crime.  

One afternoon in the autumn of 2021, Daniel, a middle-aged man with autism who works as a civil servant, was asked to collect his elderly mother from the Royal Preston Hospital. In accordance with instructions which he had been given, Daniel parked up outside the main entrance of the hospital, on an internal road.  He waited several minutes, but his mother did not appear and so he called her on his mobile phone.  Daniel’s mother explained that there had been a delay in her medicine being prepared and that he would now have to park up in the main car park whilst he waited for her. 

A nurse who was with Daniel’s mother then began giving Daniel directions, over the phone, as to where to drive in order to re-enter the internal road system of the hospital so as to access the main car park.  Because the road which Daniel was currently on was one way, he could not just turn around; he had to exit and re-enter the hospital grounds. 

As Daniel was engaged in this conversation, he saw a male Police Officer in uniform arrive outside the hospital, and walk towards the main entrance. As he did so the Officer shouted at Daniel “Get off that fucking phone and move that fucking car now”. 

Whilst it was true that Daniel was in a restricted parking zone, he was focused on the call he was participating in and on his duty to collect his mother. Daniel continued to receive instructions from the Nurse, whereupon he terminated his phone call.  At this time, he saw the Officer leaving the hospital and approaching the driver’s door of his car.  

Conscious of how aggressive the Officer had been before, Daniel did not want to engage with him, and now pulled away, scrupulously following the directions he had been given to navigate the internal road system of the hospital.  

After a short distance, Daniel became aware of the Officer following him in an unmarked car – but which had Police lights flashing and claxons activated. He did, not at first, appreciate that those lights and siren were intended for him, rather than the Officer being on another ‘emergency call’. Furthermore, he did not want to deviate from his task of collecting his mother. 

Driving in a normal manner, Daniel exited the hospital grounds, intending to circle back around on the public roads to the main entrance (so as to gain access to the car park, as instructed), but before he could do so, was obliged to stop at a zebra-crossing, whereupon the Officer drove ahead of Daniel and pulled up sharply in front of his car, boxing him in. 

Matters now escalated dramatically; the Officer alighted from his car and ran towards Daniel’s car.  On reaching it, without any warning or notice, he smashed Daniel’s window with his baton.  

Bear in mind that the maximum that Daniel could have been suspected of at this stage was a minor motoring offence – and in driving out of the hospital grounds he had in fact been obeying the Officer’s initial instructions. 

Daniel was now frozen in a state of shock and did not move as the Officer reached in, snatched his keys from the ignition, and opened the driver’s door. The Officer undid Daniel’s seatbelt and forcibly extracted my unresisting client from the car.  

The Officer – disproportionality enraged with Daniel, and taking no time to draw breath, assess the situation and recognise those differences in Daniel’s demeanour which would have explained everything – now threw Daniel up against the side of his car and repeatedly shouted at him “You’re a fucking dick”. 

Many people would be frozen with fear by this point, and Daniel’s autism only placed him more at the mercy of the Officer’s road- rage.

The Officer forced Daniel to the ground – which was scattered with glass from his shattered window, thereby causing Daniel to sustain cuts to his face and hands and damage to his trousers. He then pulled Daniel back up onto his feet, again pushed him against the side of the car, and handcuffed him with his hands behind his back.  

The Officer then marched Daniel to the rear of his own vehicle and called for ‘back up’. 

During this process, the Officer had seized Daniel’s mobile phone which was now ringing almost continuously – Daniel’s mother, and also his sister, having become anxious as to his whereabouts.   

The Officer refused to allow Daniel to answer, and instead eventually answered the phone himself, speaking to Daniel’s sister, who explained that Daniel was autistic.

‘Reinforcements’ then arrived and Daniel – still unresisting and uncomplaining – was moved from the Officer’s car to a van, whereupon he was transported to Preston Police Station. 

Daniel was taken before the Custody Desk, where he was searched and his handcuffs were finally removed. The Officer claimed that Daniel had been arrested for “Failing to Stop When Directed”, contrary to S.163 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.

Thankfully, the Custody Sergeant reacted appropriately to the situation in front of him – refusing to authorise Daniel’s detention and directing that he instead be provided with immediate medical attention. The Custody Record entry stated as follows  –

“Detained Person [DP] presents at the custody desk with blood drips across his forehead and blood covering his hands… DP does not appear to be under the influence and is autistic with a warning card in his property outlining this. DP requires medical treatment and the matter can be dealt with another time – happy with identity and necessity no longer met.” 

A decision was soon made to fully release Daniel on the basis of ‘no further action’, and the Officer who had so brutally assaulted him outside the hospital now drove him back to that very hospital so that his injuries could be treated. 

The Officer then drove Daniel to his mother’s house, where in front of Daniel’s mother and several of her neighbours, the Officer conceded that he had handled matters “badly”. 

Regrettably, Lancashire Police Professional Standards Department (PSD) were not of the same view.  Whilst Daniel’s mother filed a complaint on his behalf within days of the incident, it was not until almost two years later that she finally received an investigation report, which not only purported to determine that the Officer’s conduct was “acceptable” but which actually praised the Officer’s “robust actions.” 

Daniel had to pay a release fee to the compound where his car had been taken following his arrest, and also for his window to be replaced.

Although his physical injuries healed relatively quickly, he was understandably emotionally traumatised by what he had gone through and further distressed when, around a month after the incident, he received a letter from the DVLA stating that the Police had reported that he might be unfit to drive and might have to surrender his licence on medical grounds.  Daniel was caused worry and concern about this until the Spring of 2022 when the DVLA finally wrote to inform him that their medical investigation had cleared him to keep his licence.

The Officer’s intemperance, ego and anger management issues caused him to bulldoze through the obvious signs of Daniel’s autism, which to any reasonably minded objective observer would have excused his conduct in parking outside the hospital entrance, and in failing to immediately respond to the Officer – if any such excuse was required. 

Indeed, the Police received a complaint about this matter not only from my client’s mother, but from a concerned member of the public, who had witnessed the Officer dragging Daniel out of the car. This witness reported that he could hear the Officer shouting at Daniel “Fucking move again and I will break bones!”, whereas it was immediately apparent to the witness that Daniel had ‘mental health’ issues (in the witness’s words) and should have been treated with care and compassion.

The Officer assaulted and traumatised my client, but, as usual, his colleagues in PSD completely failed to hold him to account.

Likewise, Lancashire Police Legal Services could have agreed an amicable compensation package for Daniel without the need for Court proceedings, but declined to do so. 

In the face of the Police denial of liability, and refusal to negotiate, Daniel courageously authorised me to issue Court proceedings on his behalf and I am pleased to confirm that after their receipt of my detailed pleading of his claim, Lancashire Constabulary agreed to settle Daniel’s claim for wrongful arrest, assault and battery, and interference with his vehicle, in the sum of £6,250 plus legal costs.  

In the case of ZH v The Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, which dealt with Police mistreatment of a young autistic man at a public swimming pool, the judge Sir Robert Nelson found that the Police had manifestly failed to make “reasonable adjustments” in their approach to him – and after cautioning that the “need for a calm assessment of the situation and the acquisition of knowledge of how to deal with the autistic man before taking any precipitate action was essential” (paragraph 139), went on to conclude that “[This] case highlights the need for there to be an awareness of the disability of autism within the public services. It is to be hoped that this sad case will help bring that about.” (164). 

The Police owe an imperative duty to respect the full contours of society; not to impose a flatline approach which disrespects and victimises the vulnerable; but over a decade after the judgment in ZH, autistic people are still being victimised by blinkered, brutal, and blowhard Policing.   

The name of my client has been changed.

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please post a positive review on Trustpilot to get the word out. Every 5 star review I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

Justice should be blind when it comes to arbitrating impartially between the parties contesting a Court case – but justice should not be allowed to be blindfolded, however, by Police Officers who either fail to switch their body cameras on, confiscate mobile phones, or fail to retain footage which they have filmed, thereby seeking to obscure their activities, avoid accountability and control the evidential narrative.

Last month, I won a victory for my client Mo Izhar at Oxford County Court in proceedings brought against Thames Valley Police. It was a great result for my client, and there are a number of important issues arising from the case which I would like to highlight in this week’s blog post, representing the type of every-day abuses of power born out of Police ‘entitlement’, which must be recognised if they are to be stopped.

Attack of the Clones

One evening in December 2021, Mo pulled up onto the forecourt of a Petrol Station in Oxfordshire driving a BMW. This was a courtesy car given to him as his own car had been damaged in a road traffic accident.

As Mo got out of his car to go to the garage shop, two more BMWs pulled onto the forecourt, ‘boxing’ his vehicle in. Several men in Police uniform alighted from the two vehicles; Officers whom we now know to be PC Husbands, PC Wardlaw, PC Wheeler and PC Palfreyman.

One Officer told Mo not to move, and accordingly he remained by his car whilst the Officer spoke to him. The Officer stated that Mo’s vehicle had been reported as potentially being on cloned plates and that the officers wanted to establish if it was genuine. Mo explained that the vehicle was a courtesy car and that he had the relevant documents; however, as my client made to walk towards the passenger side of his car so as to access it (for the purposes of getting his vehicle paperwork/ID) he was stopped by the Officer, who took hold of Mo’s left wrist. Meanwhile, another officer opened the front passenger door of the car and leant inside, searching it.

It later transpired that Mo’s registration had ‘activated’ the Police vehicle’s ‘in car’ Automatic Number Plate Registration (ANPR) system, as it was believed to have been cloned – but the Officers had no information to suggest that Mo’s car was a clone, as opposed to being the original, legitimate vehicle.

Little Brother Is Watching You

At this point Mo wisely commenced filming his interactions with the Officers by means of his mobile phone which was held in his right hand. Mo protested that he didn’t know who the Officers were (because they had not properly identified themselves to him) and that they had assaulted him (the Officer who had grabbed hold of and was continuing to grip his left arm).

In response to this, the Officer holding Mo’s arm did not apologise, but rather escalated matters by instructing Mo to put his hands behind his back – “because we don’t know who you are” – whilst a second Officer falsely asserted that Mo kept trying to walk off. A different Officer now took hold of Mo’s right wrist and forced him to put his mobile phone down on the bonnet of the Officer’s car. This Officer then handcuffed Mo’s hands behind his back.

This is an all too common Police response to criticism: rather than attempting to explain themselves, and diffuse conflict, they ramp up the level of aggression in order to silence rather than answer the legitimate questions they are being asked.

The Officers then began to question Mo as regards the car and asked him for his ID. He answered their questions and pointed out that he could not produce his ID because they had put him in handcuffs when he was going to get it. The Officer advised that he would get it for Mo, to which Mo replied that he would get it or he would give the Officer his licence number. The Officer accused Mo of being ‘awkward’ and uncooperative, whilst Mo complained about being handcuffed for nothing.

There was no question that Mo was being subjected to both false imprisonment and assault and battery whilst these events were unfolding. Remember that unless they are invoking mental health legislation, or stopping you whilst driving, the Police cannot lawfully detain you when you are out and about in public without either arresting you or performing an official ‘stop and search’ and, even then, they must inform you what they are doing and why. The Police are not entitled to detain you whilst they determine whether or not to arrest you.  However, all too often experienced officers (like this squad) will attempt to do just this, apparently banking on people not knowing their rights – or being intimidated into silence. This constitutes at best a lazy and at worse a cynical and bullying abuse of Police power, which they are attempting to exert without all the necessary safeguards which the law has put in place to ensure the proper accountability. Abuse of power abhors both a paper-trail and independent video recording, as you will see as this story continues.

Mo explained that his ID was in his bag in the back of his car whereupon the Officer located and retrieved it.

Mo’s continued detention caused him not only physical discomfort, but also embarrassment given its very public location: several members of the public were watching him as they came and went across the garage forecourt, no doubt thinking that there was no smoke without fire. He continued to remonstrate as to why he was being treated like a criminal and the Officers continued to say that there was good reason for their actions and that my client was being “awkward” and he had “attitude.” Mo was in fact displaying entirely the correct attitude, standing up for his civil liberties, which the Court proceedings we brought would ultimately uphold.

During Mo’s ongoing, unlawful detention, several Officers searched the interior of his car, including the boot. It was unclear what, if anything, they were looking for. Mo’s detention in handcuffs continued to attract the attention of passing members of the public and he again expressed his embarrassment.

In response to my client’s legitimate questions as to why the Officers were doing this and his polite protests as to their conduct, the Officers continued to berate him, telling him to “lose the attitude” and “your attitude stinks”. After Mo identified himself as a HGV driver, one of the Officers unnecessarily commented “It’s like me saying all HGV drivers are wankers…..”

An Officer also falsely asserted that Mo had attempted to walk off when the Officers first approached him, which was so patently untrue that Mo protested “Do not lie”, to which the Officer replied that he wasn’t lying.

Eventually, after approximately 10 minutes, apparently having satisfied their curiosity/ exerted their power enough, the Officers advised that they were prepared to release Mo and removed his handcuffs.

Mo now requested a stop and search record but the Officers refused on the basis that Mo himself had not personally been searched. Mo then pointed out that his vehicle had certainly been searched, to which the Officers disingenuously responded that his vehicle had not been searched, but they had simply been ‘looking for his ID’. Mo correctly asserted (as Garage CCTV footage would incontrovertibly prove, cutting through the darkness the Officers subsequently created by deleting their body camera recordings of the incident) that in fact the Officers had “went through all the car.”

As Mo held the line and asked if the Officers were refusing to give him a search record, they fell back on another ploy to avoid a paper-trail, by exaggerating the length of time it would take to produce in an apparent attempt to try and make their victim give up:  “We’ll give you one if you want to wait…It’s going to be about half an hour though…I’d go and get a cup of tea if I were you because you’re going to be here a while.”

Call A Dick, A Dick?

Is the Police definition of a ‘dick’: a person who knows their rights and is prepared to stand up for them?

In response to the Officer’s rather transparent attempt at stalling, which I have transcribed above,  Mo astutely called their bluff, saying the Officer himself could get a cup of tea and take as long as he wanted. A short time later (not in fact half an hour, as it turned out) Mo was given an official log number. As the Officers then began to depart, one of them warned my client that if he continued to ‘carry on’, he would put him ‘on the system’ so that he would be repeatedly stopped. The same Officer then called Mo a “knob” and then “an absolute dick” but when challenged by Mo as to his disgraceful language initially denied saying this, apparently unaware that my client had captured the Officer’s insult on his mobile phone, and then claimed that he only said that Mo was “acting like a dick”. This type of frankly smart-arsed semantic back- talk would not get members of the public very far if the positions were reversed, I am sure we can all agree.

As it was, Mo had no immediate recourse for his anger and frustration as the unrepentant Officers drove off, but thankfully he was soon able to reach out to me, and we started to put matters right by means of the civil justice system, aided by Mo’s wise decision to record the incident on his phone and to seek the garage forecourt CCTV from the owners of the petrol station. It was very well that he had done so, as the Police Officers themselves all failed to mark up their body camera recordings for preservation, thereby allowing them to be deleted, and when Thames Valley Police legal services responded to the claim they wrongly alleged –

• that Mo had been immediately obstructive (rather than co-operative);
• that he had attempted to walk away, rather than engaging with the Officers;
• that the Officers had not searched Mo’s car;
• that the last Officer had not sworn at Mo in any way.

An Unrepentant Attitude: But We Made Them Sorry  

These assertions were maintained in the Defence which Thames Valley Police filed to my client’s County Court claim, but were then exposed by our disclosure of the video evidence which Mo had gathered – leading to the Police having to hastily revise their factual account. They filed an Amended Defence, hiding behind the phrase “attrition of memory” to describe what the less charitable amongst us might suspect were deliberate falsehoods by the Officers – every single one of these supposed gaps in their memory being in the Officers’ favour rather than neutral or in Mo’s. But even now the Police were only prepared to concede partial liability – admitting that Mo had been unlawfully detained and his vehicle interfered with, but seeking to deny that he had been assaulted – and in any event maintaining that Mo should receive only ‘nominal damages’ (i.e, small change).

Hence it was necessary to proceed to trial, which took place before His Honour Judge Andrew Davies on 5–6 February 2025 at Oxford County Court, and at which my client received a significant award of damages and legal costs, plus the great satisfaction of public vindication. None of the individual Officers involved in this incident may have been prepared to apologise – but we made them sorry.

I will continue my account of this case in Part 2 of this blog next week, when I will highlight some of the Judge’s key findings at trial and the lessons to be learned in how to protect yourself from Police misconduct and win claims against them.

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please post a positive review on Trustpilot to get the word out. Every 5 star review I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

Sometimes, the question as to whether the Police have “reasonable suspicion” to justify a person’s arrest is a highly nuanced question which needs to be the subject of intense legal debate and analysis both in and out of the Court room.  On other occasions, it is a matter of blindingly obvious common sense which Officers have overlooked, as they going rushing in ‘where angels fear to tread.’

My client Richard is a 6 foot tall man, with a strong ‘northern’ accent, and who does not have any tattoos on either of his hands.  As far as distinguishing features go there is also the small matter of his having a prosthetic left leg, following a serious road traffic accident some years ago.

In or around 2021, Richard moved into Flat 2 of a shared house of five flats in a town in Kent.

In September/October 2023, Richard was asked by his landlord to move into Flat 4 in the same building, whilst renovation works were carried out. At this time, Flat 4 had been vacant for a lengthy period of time. 

Late one evening in November 2023, Richard was in bed, dressed only in his boxer shorts (and with his prosthetic limb therefore entirely visible) when he was disturbed by a loud banging on the door of his flat. 

Concerned, Richard opened the door to be confronted by three Officers of Kent Police.  One of the Officers, PC White, asked Richard if he was “Kevin Butler”.  Richard of course replied that he was not.

It is now known that the Officers were looking for Kevin Butler so as to arrest him for failing to attend Court. Mr Butler’s PNC (Police National Computer) record confirmed that he was 5ft 8 inches tall, with a London accent and distinctive tattoos on his left hand and right wrist – other than being white and male, Richard and Mr Butler shared no identifying characteristics – and, even more notably, Mr Butler had two legs. 

Nevertheless, PC White now stepped into Richard’s flat, seized hold of my client’s right wrist and told him “You are under arrest for failing to appear”.  PC White applied a handcuff to Richard’s right wrist, causing him discomfort.

Richard immediately challenged this misidentification and told the Officers his name.

Another Officer now commented “We will sort it out in a minute, we think you look very much like him (i.e. Mr Butler) and you’ve got a lot of tatts so we will be able to sort it out”. Richard did have tattoos on his body, but not on his hands.

Richard, now perhaps doing the Officers’ investigative duty for them, pointed out that he only had one leg and queried if Mr Butler also only had one leg.  All three Officers confirmed that they had not noted that particular detail on Mr Butler’s PNC record – which undoubtedly they would have done, had it been there. 

With realisation perhaps beginning to dawn, the Officers removed the handcuff from Richard and allowed him to produce ID in the form of his bank card.  Richard told the Officers that they had “scared the life” out of him. 

PC White then left Richard’s flat for several minutes to check the Police National Database, during which time Richard remained, in effect under (wrongful) arrest. 

When PC White returned, Richard had to allow his hands and wrists to be checked, to confirm that he did not bear the tattoos which Mr Butler did in those places, whereupon the Officers advised Richard “We will mark it up and hopefully we won’t bother you again”.  As the Officers left the flat one of them flippantly remarked “Your disability has done you a favour tonight”.

Richard was understandably left shaken and upset by these events, struggled to return to sleep that night and suffered with worry and anxiety for several weeks afterwards.

Although the whole incident had not lasted more than 16 minutes, it was a gross and disturbing intrusion into Richard’s home and life and the effects of it lingered for much longer than that.

Richard was subject to wrongful arrest and detention without the least justification in his home.  It was all the harder for him to bear because a modicum of common sense would have excluded him from all reasonable suspicion.  His arrest was therefore a perfect – or should we say imperfect – example of high handed, arbitrary, and egregiously thoughtless use of Police power. I am pleased to report that I have recently recovered £3,000 damages, plus legal costs, on behalf of Richard from the Chief Constable. You can read here about some of the many other mistaken identity arrests in which I have recovered significant compensation for my clients, including another case in which Officers ‘overlooked’ a missing limb . If you have been subjected to this type of arrest, then please do not hesitate to contact me for advice.

My client’s name, and the name of the wanted man, have been changed.

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please post a positive review on Trustpilot to get the word out. Every 5 star review I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

What are “Aggravated Damages”?

The general principle of the civil law in England and Wales is to put a successful Claimant back into the position they would have been in had the civil wrong (tort) not been committed against them by the Defendant. There is a special category of damages called “exemplary damages” which are specifically designed to punish the wrongdoer (tortfeasor) rather than make up for the losses of the Claimant – so any award of exemplary damages is a ‘windfall’ for the Claimant; as such, even in claims against the Police, exemplary damages are only rarely awarded, signalling the Court’s displeasure with the most egregious behaviour.

 So, the principle most civil claims are operating under is a strictly ‘compensatory’ one – designed to ‘make up’ for financial losses, loss of liberty or any injuries sustained, but not more than that. It is a ‘re- setting of the balance.’ Furthermore, in most cases, for example accident claims, compensation cannot be awarded for ‘injury to feelings’ – the only mental/ emotional anguish which can be compensated is that arising from a recognized psychiatric injury, diagnosed by an independent medical expert.  

However, awards for injury to feelings can be granted in exceptional cases which involve deliberate, as opposed to accidental, wrongdoing; such awards are known as “aggravated damages” and I am pleased to confirm that what is exceptional in most civil cases, is quite often achievable in cases  in which I specialise, namely claims against the Police.  

Aggravated damages give people the right to recover what the Court of Appeal in the case of Rowlands v Chief Constable of Merseyside [2006] EWCA Civ 1773 called the “intangible consequences” of “humiliation, injury to pride and dignity…the hurt caused by spiteful, malicious, insulting or arrogant conduct of the Defendant.” As was cogently observed by Moore- Bick LJ  in the Rowlands case, the type of harm which aggravated damages are designed to address can be clearly distinguished from psychiatric illness/ injury – it comprises those upsetting emotions of humiliation, anger  and resentment which “do not ordinarily result in psychiatric harm, but are no less real for that reason.”  

The applicability of aggravated damages to cases involving wrongful arrest, excessive force or other Police wrongdoing was recognized by the Court of Appeal in the seminal case of Thompson v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [1998] QB 498 which set the parameters for many categories of damages awards in claims against the Police, and which has stood the test of more than a quarter century of legal history –    

(8) “If the case is one in which aggravated damages are claimed and could be appropriately awarded, the nature of aggravated damages should be explained to the jury. Such damages can be awarded where there are aggravating features about the case which would result in the plaintiff not receiving sufficient compensation for the injury suffered if the award were restricted to a basic award. Aggravating features can include humiliating circumstances at the time of arrest or any conduct of those responsible for the arrest or the prosecution which shows that they had behaved in a high handed, insulting, malicious or oppressive manner either in relation to the arrest or imprisonment or in conducting the prosecution. Aggravating features can also include the way the litigation and trial are conducted.”

The entitlement to aggravated damages in these cases is, quite correctly, arising because the tortfeasors are Police Officers imbued with special powers and responsibilities and hence any insulting/ malicious behaviour by them is more hurtful to the injured party than the same conduct committed by a private citizen, precisely because the wrongdoers here are agents of the law, agents of the State – and it is requisite upon them not to behave like unprofessional, undignified bullies. It is, what we might call, another method of protecting the liberty and integrity of the citizen from “high- handed oppression” – every person’s mind and body also being ‘castles’ in their own way.

How To Win Aggravated Damages

Examples of Police behaviour which can justify awards of aggravated damages include the following –  

• if the conduct took place in public or within the knowledge of your community (e.g being lead away in handcuffs in front of family members or neighbours); 
• if you were of previous good character; 
• if a wrongful arrest is exacerbated by Police Officers maintaining lies in an attempt to justify it; 
• if you were belittled, verbally abused, or otherwise humiliated; 
• if the Police were motivated by racial prejudice;   
• if the Police attempted to obstruct the investigation of any complaint you have made; 
• the way litigation and trial are conducted (e.g if the Police refuse to apologise and fight a meritorious claim ‘tooth and nail’, denying liability all the way, or almost all the way to trial).  

Normally aggravated damages will not exceed the amount awarded for ‘basic’ compensatory damages. However, in the most exceptional circumstances, a Court could award aggravated damages at a maximum of twice the amount of basic damages. 

How does this work in practice? Let me give you a recent example from a case of mine which went to trial at Oxford County Court last month.

My client Mohammad was unlawfully detained when Officers of Thames Valley Police wrongly targeted his car on suspicion of it being a ‘clone’, handcuffed him in full view of members of the public on a garage forecourt, demanded his ID and searched his car without justification. Thankfully, Mo’s detention was relatively short- lived, only around 10 minutes, but the way he had been treated by the Officers during that time caused him precisely the form of upset and humiliation which aggravated damages are designed to compensate, and I identified the following factors for the Court’s attention –

• these events took place in the full glare of the ‘public eye’;
• the Officers used abusive words to Mo, including “wanker”, “knob” and “dick” (and then tried to deny this);
• the Officers attempted to frustrate Mo’s request for a written record of what they had done to him by first denying that any search had been carried out, and then admitting that it had but trying to make Mo desist in his attempts to have them create a paper-trail by exaggerating how long the process of creating the record was going to take; in my opinion this was a deeply unprofessional, if not in fact a malicious, attempt by the Officers to avoid future scrutiny of their actions and hence proper accountability;
• subsequent false accounts made by the Officers in an attempt to avoid liability for their actions.

I am pleased to say that the arguments put forward by myself and Mo’s barrister, the excellentUna Morris of Garden Court Chambers won the day , with His Honour Judge Andrew Davies making a significant award of aggravated damages in favour of my client, stressing his disapproval in particular at the Officers’ “high- handed manner”, their “unprofessional and obstructive” attempt to deny that a search had been carried out, and their flippant comments to my client, thereby causing Mo a “justifiable sense of outrage” at his treatment.   

Indeed, the award of aggravated damages in this case increased Mo’s total compensation by almost 90%, thereby allowing him to ‘beat’ an earlier offer of settlement which had been made by the Police and recover his full legal costs – which was as it should be. This is why aggravated damages are such an important weapon in civil claims against the Police, and the fight to uphold and vindicate our fundamental constitutional rights.

How you can help me

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog post and the many others available on this website. If you have, then I would like to ask you a favour – in a world in which large and non-specialist law firms (generally from a personal injury background) are increasingly throwing huge marketing budgets into online advertising in order to ‘capture’ Actions Against the Police clients – I need your help to ensure that those in need of real expert advice come to the best place for representation. If you value the insights and expertise which I share on this blog, and the results which I have achieved for the people whose stories are recounted here, please post a positive review on Trustpilot to get the word out. Every 5 star review I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

For those who doubt the existence of ‘racial profiling’ tendencies amongst Police Officers, I here offer a report on the case of my client Zac Sharif-Ali, a black man of Somalian heritage, who suffered no less than three unlawful stop-and-search events at the hands of the Metropolitan Police over an 8 year period. I have previously written about his other cases here. This week’s blog post concerns his third successful claim. 

One evening in July 2020, Zac was driving home in his BMW motor car when he noticed a marked Police carrier van travelling in the opposite direction.  As the two vehicles past each other, Zac noticed the Police van slow and perform a U-turn manoeuvre. 

A short distance along the same road Zac reached his home address and began reversing into his normal car parking space outside.  As he did so, the Police carrier suddenly pulled up sharply alongside him. 

A female Officer now known to be PC Lawless and two male Officers alighted from the van and walked rapidly towards Zac’s car.  He lowered his driver’s door window. 

PC Lawless said “Hello mate you alright?  Do you mind stopping the vehicle and getting out?” to which Zac asked “What for?” and PC Lawless replied “So we can chat with you, sir.” 

Zac considered his vehicle to be in an unsafe position (halfway through an angled parking manoeuvre) and therefore decided to finish parking up before he spoke to the Officers.  Before doing so, he wound up his window because it was raining. PC Lawless immediately opened the driver’s door and said to my client “Right, now I’ve asked you to get out of the vehicle, you’re detained under Section 1 Police and Criminal Evidence Act.”  Zac removed his seatbelt and responded “I was just parking my vehicle, I live right here”.  

Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE)  is that which allows Police Officers to detain a person for the purposes of a search of his person or his vehicle for “stolen or prohibited articles” (which includes offensive weapons)  – provided, of course, that the Officer has objectively reasonable grounds for suspecting the person to be in possession of such items. For the avoidance of doubt, being a black man in possession of a BMW does not  amount to grounds to suspect that you are a criminal.

PC Lawless stated –  “Sir, my name is PC Lawless from Larkhall Police Station and you’re entitled to a copy of the search form afterwards.  Get out of the vehicle now sir.”  Zac now began to voluntarily exit his car, but PC Lawless and her colleague PC Vigneswaran nevertheless seized hold of his arms and handcuffed his hands behind his back, notwithstanding his compliance. Zac’s mobile phone and keys were also seized. 

PC Lawless now continued, “As I’ve explained, I’ve asked you to get out of the vehicle, you’ve refused.  You put your window up as though you’re trying to hide something and then you’ve continued to reverse back, okay”.  This could not, in fact, amount to reasonable grounds for a search – for a start, what Zac was doing was not unreasonable; he had not refused to get out of the vehicle; and, most importantly, the Officers had clearly already decided to stop-and-search him before they even spoke to him. 

At this point, my client recognised two of the other Officers present, PC Ngo and PS Rees, who had stopped him for a negative drugs search in May 2020, as detailed in my previous blog post.   

Zac was led over to a wall, where PC Lawless said “The reason why we wanted to have a chat with you sir is that you’ve come out of the junction really quickly… right, you’ve shot out that junction really quickly.  You’ve then seen us come towards you on blue lights, you’ve then spun the vehicle round and it looks as though you’ve gone to drive off.  I’ve then approached you and asked you to get out of the vehicle multiple times, you’ve done the window up and continued to drive as though you might drive off.  So, I’ve detained under Section 1 for weapons…” 

PC Lawless then continued “The reason why I have put you in handcuffs is I suspect you having weapons on you, you could have stored them in the waistband etc, you could grab them and you could easily attack one of us ….. The reason why I took your mobile phones out of your hand is because they could be used as weapons to either attack me or my colleague.”  

Zac was flabbergasted by these spurious accusations, though at the same time they were depressingly familiar to him. He had no doubt that the Officers’ suspicion of him was based on his ethnicity, or, we might say, no more than skin- deep. 

The Officers now informed Zac that he would now be taken into the Police carrier and searched; given his previous experience of Police violence, including being subjected to a ‘choke-hold’ by PC Bullock of the Met in the 2012 incident,  Zac’s heart immediately started racing and he felt scared that the Officers were going to assault him.  Accordingly, he immediately remonstrated and requested that he be searched in the street “in front of everyone” to ensure his safety.

 PC Lawless replied that there were certain things that could not be done in the street such as the removal of Zac’s shoes.  Again, my client requested that the search take place in public.  PC Lawless responded “I’m happy to search you initially here, but then we’re going to need to do a more thorough search on the bus.” 

PC Lawless then began to carry out a ‘pat down’ search of my client.  PC Vigneswaran commented that Zac’s request “raised his suspicion” that Zac “had something concealed upon him.” Zac honestly replied that he was scared. He was already in pain and discomfort, owing to the tightness of the handcuffs upon his wrists. 

Despite the fact that Zac now removed his shoes himself, on the street, PC Lawless continued to maintain that his shoes could not be checked here “because it needs to be out of view” – a bizarre piece of check-box bureaucratic brutality in the circumstances. Multiple Officers forced Zac into the Police carrier with PC Lawless also claiming that his reluctance to get in was raising her “suspicions.”  

The response of the Police here displays both a lack of compassion and of common- sense. Officers so often fail to appreciate that their unwanted, intimidating presence is going to cause the very behaviour in people that they then claim as some kind of retrospective justification of their original decision to detain that person: such retrospective reasoning is not, of course, lawful and in any event mistakes effect for cause. 

Zac was now further searched, as was his vehicle: nothing illegal, of course, was present.

Nevertheless, Zac was not free to leave. PC Arthur now informed my client that they suspected that he was under the influence of drink or drugs and would be subjected to a breath test and a drug wipe accordingly. He was told he would remain under detention whilst testing equipment was obtained. This prolonged the emotional torment Zac was already under, as he was told he could not leave the Police carrier, despite his fears. Notwithstanding that nothing had been found on my client or in his vehicle, he continued to be handcuffed. 

This is another sadly common tactic deployed by Police Officers who have overstepped the mark: if at first, they don’t succeed, they will try, try again to find a reason to criminalise their victim, in order to cover their initial mistake. 

PC Lawless now at last relented, and assisted Zac out of the carrier – although she still refused to remove his handcuffs, despite his compliance; another unlawful use of force upon my client. 

When Zac again protested and asserted that all he had been doing was to reverse his car to park outside his home, PC Lawless at last moved his handcuffs and told him that she would complete the stop-and-search form that he was entitled to under the GOWISELY code which governs the legality of street searches. 

Somewhat farcically and giving the lie to any suggestion that the Officers properly suspected that Zac was under the influence of drink/ drugs, PS Rees now requested that Zac move his vehicle (i.e finish parking it) and his keys were returned to him. He was also allowed to go into his flat to relieve himself, and then on his return was informed that as there had been a delay in the testing equipment arriving, he would not now be tested and was, at last, free to go. PC Lawless issued him with a copy of the stop- search record. 

Striking Back: Zac’s Hatrick

 And so, for the third time, Zac had to sue the Metropolitan Police with my assistance in order to assert his civil rights. 

Given the typically combative approach of the Metropolitan Police to claims against them, I was not surprised when they denied liability, filing a Defence in which they asserted that PC Lawless had lawfully detained Zac for the purposes of a “weapons search” under Section 1 of PACE.

Denying – of course – that Zac’s ethnicity had anything to do with the decision to stop him, the Met were only able to offer the suggestion that Zac had “pulled out from a junction at speed” (whilst not providing any estimate of the alleged speed, nor having arrested Zac for any motoring offence) as a specific reason why they thought he might have weapons in his car, coupled with the highly generic assertion that there had been “an increase in gang and drug related crime” in the area. Such flimsy excuses could never amount to reasonable grounds to deprive a person of his liberty and commit trespass to his person, leaving us with the bad taste in our mouths of an unspoken, racial reason. 

Apparently reluctant to have his Officers subjected to cross- examination on these issues, and notwithstanding the Defence which had been served, the Commissioner of Police backed down in the face of Zac’s determination and ultimately agreed a settlement of £7,500 damages for my client, plus his legal costs. 

Of course, it never had to come to this, and Zac certainly wishes that it hadn’t, yet the Police must be held to account when they use ‘skin-deep’ reasons to interfere in an innocent person’s life. The Met should get this memo: BMW does not stand for “Black Male with Weapons.”

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