Tag: actions against the police; solicitor; lawyer; iain gould; compensation claims

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.”

I am proud that throughout the many years I have been blogging on this site, its success has been organic, not paid for by advertising campaigns in order to “game” the Google rankings. If you value my site and my regular postings, you can play a crucial part in its ongoing success by giving a positive review. Every 5 star review which I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

I have written before about how the Courts of England and Wales expect Police Officers on the ‘frontline of the thin blue line’ to display reasonably thick skins when it comes to unpleasant, but every day, swear words used in their presence – and not to ‘weaponise’ the Public Order Act  order to punish people who are being disrespectful, or even merely ‘cheeky’ in their presence.  

In this respect, the law has not changed since I wrote this blog post in 2011 regarding the case of Harvey v Director of Public Prosecutions (2011) EWHC B1(Admin) l in which the High Court reminded the Police that “Parliament has not made it an offence to swear in public” and cited with approval the comments of Glidewell LJ in DPP v Orum [1989] –

“Very frequently words and behaviour with which Police Officers will be wearily familiar will have little emotional impact on them save that of boredom. It may well be that, in appropriate circumstances, justices will decide as a question of fact that the words and behaviour were not likely in all the circumstances to cause harassment, alarm or distress to either of the Police Officers. That is a question of fact for the justices to be decided in all the circumstances, the time, the place, the nature of the words used, who the Police Officers are, and so on.”

Down the years, I have also recounted the stories of some of the many football fans whom I have helped to win substantial damages when it is the behaviour of the Police Officers policing the crowd which turns out to be the real hooliganism. 

 This week’s blog post brings both of these recurrent themes into focus, as I explain what befell my client Jack W and how I helped him to secure a court judgment against and compensation from Greater Manchester Police following an incident after the Manchester Derby in January 2023. 

Jack had attended the match at Old Trafford with his brother and friends, and after the game finished was part of the large exodus of fans heading towards the local Metrolink station. Jack was carrying a can of lager and a tray of chips and gravy. 

Jack accepts that as he was walking along he mischievously called out “pigs” at two Police Officers, now known to be PS Ritchie and PC Shahhet.  

The Officers then rapidly approached Jack and PS Ritchie questioned him “What did you say?”, to which Jack replied “You heard”. 

PS Ritchie then grabbed Jack’s wrist and pulled him from the (peaceful) crowd, whilst PC Shahhet removed the can of beer and tray of chips from Jack’s hands.  

Jack was escorted towards an off- road area and pushed against a metal fence. A third Officer, now known to be PC Sharples, also closed in and together the three Officers began bending and pulling Jack’s arms, hurting his wrists and then began standing on his left foot and kicking his legs in an apparent attempt to trip him to the ground. 

Bizarrely, two of the Officers then took hold of Jack’s legs (one Officer holding each leg) and lifted Jack up into the air, where my client found himself swaying precariously – above the Officers heads – as if they were cheerleaders trying to build some kind of human pyramid. The Officers then dropped Jack to the ground, whereupon one of them kneed him in the head.  

You won’t be surprised to read that this manoeuvre by the Police – lifting Jack up into the air by his legs – was not a ‘Home Office approved’ use of force technique.  When I saw mobile phone footage of this incident, I was frankly shocked. The Officers had placed Jack into a position of great danger, and it was only good fortune that he did not sustain potentially life changing injuries in a break-neck fall.   

Even as it was, Jack did not avoid injury – the three Officers applied further force to him as he lay face down upon the ground, grinding his face into the ground as his hands were handcuffed behind his back, and causing Jack to suffer a cut above his eye which bled profusely. 

At this time, still no Officer had told Jack that he was under arrest. The Police do not have powers of detention without arrest, except in limited circumstances which did not apply here – so there is no doubt that Jack was not only being unlawfully assaulted, he was also being falsely imprisoned.

Jack was brought to his feet and caged in the back of a Police van, before being driven to hospital, given the substantial gash above his eyebrow.

On arrival at the hospital, common sense at last seemed to prevail and the Officers removed Jack’s handcuffs and released him, allowing him to seek help from A&E staff for his injury without suffering the insult of being marched in as a Police prisoner. 

 In response to the letter of claim which I sent to Greater Manchester Police on behalf of my client, the Police flat-out denied liability, and disclosed statements from their Officers asserting that all of their uses of force upon Jack were lawful for the purposes of effecting his arrest for a Section 5 Public Order Act offence.  

Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 provides as follows –

Harassment, alarm or distress.

(1) 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.

 As I am sure you will gather from my earlier comments, based on my thorough knowledge of the case law, I rejected GMP’s assertion that Jack’s act of calling the Police Officers ‘pigs’ could have constituted such an offence. Surely none of the many robust Police Officers in the vicinity, on football crowd control duty, could have possibly been caused “harassment, alarm or distress” by the use of that puerile, but also pretty inoffensive, word. 

Furthermore, any suggestion that actual members of the public in the vicinity would have been alarmed by Jack’s use of this porcine pejorative was equally unlikely. The only members of the public in the area were Jack’s fellow football fans, none of whom, I am confident, would have been shocked to hear that word – and many of whom were, frankly, probably thinking it. Jack’s behaviour has to be seen in the context of his being part of a football crowd – not a convention of nuns or choir boys. 

To my mind, the Officers could and should have simply ignored Jack’s run-of-the-mill insult. It was totally unnecessary for them to lay hands upon him – pushing, shoving and twisting him up. The Police Officers were wasting their own time; they were running the risk of completely unnecessarily antagonising the football crowd; and, as I have pointed out, they were also putting Jack at risk of far more serious injuries even than those that he actually sustained.

It was obvious to me that the Police were going to have real problems in justifying what they did to Jack, although that did not stop PS Ritchie having a stab at it in the statement that he wrote after the incident. This was how he described the key part of the incident, when Jack was raised up into the air by Officers holding his legs – 

“At one point he lifted himself above myself and the other two Officers, saying something along the lines of “even three of you can’t get me”….we managed to coordinate our movements and take [Jack] to the floor”.

 This was clearly nonsense.  How does a person ‘lift himself above’ another person in a situation like this? Jack was obviously being lifted up by the Officers; unless PS Ritchie was attempting to suggest that my client was levitating?

The Officers had got themselves into a ‘Keystone Cops’ mess, and had caused real injury and harm to my client in the process.  Faced with the Police denial of liability, I advised Jack about the strengths of his case and recommended that he bring Court proceedings to hold the Chief Constable to account for the behaviour of his Officers. Jack courageously accepted my advice – because even when you have a strong case and a lawyer who is an expert in this field –  going to Court can still be a daunting, lengthy and stressful process. 

However, I am pleased to confirm that these proceedings have been speedily concluded in Jack’s favour.  I secured Judgment for him against the Chief Constable and a settlement of £10,000 plus legal costs.  

I trust that those of you who are ‘season ticket’ holders to this Blog will tell any football fans you know to reach out to me, should they need advice and assistance when the Police Officers who are supposed to be the agents of public order, become its disruptors; hooligans in uniform. 

I am proud that throughout the many years I have been blogging on this site, its success has been organic, not paid for by advertising campaigns in order to “game” the Google rankings. If you value my site and my regular postings, you can play a crucial part in its ongoing success by giving a positive review. Every 5 star review which I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

The primary duty of the Police is to keep the peace; but all too often, they break it – and today’s blog post contains a prime example of this and explains how I helped my clients Louise and Colin win compensation when they were unlawfully arrested by Officers of Nottinghamshire Police. 

One evening in September 2020, Louise, a nurse, returned home from a long shift in work. Her partner Colin was waiting for her, along with her pet dogs.  

Shortly afterwards, Louise and Colin noticed a Police car pull up on the road outside their home – and saw several Police Officers violently apprehending and handcuffing a young woman, whom they recognised as their neighbour. A short while later, they saw their neighbour being released by the Officers. 

Louise remembered that she had left her phone charger inside her car and went out to retrieve it.  As she opened the front door to leave, her dogs ran outside, and Louise and Colin had to spend a few moments shouting for the dogs to come back and ushering them back into the flat.  

Once the dogs were safely back inside the flat, Louise turned and took several steps along the garden path.  At this point, she saw three of the Police Officers who had been involved in the altercation with her neighbour, rapidly approaching.

 Louise was apprehensive about the Officers – given how she had seen them conduct themselves with her neighbour – and she therefore decided to go back inside her flat; however as she attempted to lock her front door she was prevented from doing so by the Officers, who forced their way in shouting that they needed to enter her flat because of  a “domestic incident”. 

 Both Louise and Colin truthfully denied that any ‘domestic’ had taken place between them, but nevertheless the Officers forced their way into the flat – barging past Louise and knocking her into the wall in the process.

The Officers then ‘swarmed’ Colin, twisting his arms behind his back painfully and announcing that he was under arrest.

The only explanation which the Officers were prepared to offer to either of my shocked clients at this point was the claim that there had been a “Domestic”.

Colin was then marched from the flat.

Louise remonstrated with the Officers about their treatment of her partner, and reiterated that no fight or argument had taken place between them, if that was what was being alleged.  Unfortunately, two of the Officers – Special Constable Hotham and Special Sergeant Wagstaff then took hold of Louise, forcing her arms behind her back and announcing that she was now also under arrest for being “Drunk and disorderly”.   

Louise immediately challenged the Officers, asserting that she had just returned home from work – pointing out that she was still wearing her nursing uniform – and that she was stone cold sober. To reinforce this, she offered to undergo a breathalyser test. 

Apparently still wanting to arrest our client – but recalibrating his excuse for doing so – Special Constable Hotham then announced that Louise was being detained for a “Breach of the peace”.  

As this incident was ongoing, Louise wisely and repeatedly asked for the Officers to activate their body worn cameras; however, they wilfully refused to do so.  

I have written before about how strongly I feel that there should be no discretion for Officers who are equipped with body worn video cameras to not record any conflict situations with members of the public; it is in everyone’s interest, and indeed the overarching interests of justice, that such cameras be activated to properly evidence what is going on and to act as truly impartial witnesses to the events.  Or, in other words – no ‘off button’ for Officers! 

Outside the flat, Officers asked Colin for his personal details, but he refused to provide them because he was incensed by their conduct and knew that he had done nothing wrong. 

Shortly afterwards, Louise was also led out of the flat in handcuffs and bundled roughly into a waiting Police car – during which process, SC Hotham tried to slam the car door shut and caught Louise’s foot, injuring her.  

As Colin maintained his refusal to provide his details, he was jostled by the Officers. He felt one of them grabbing and tightening his handcuffs and another one grabbing his underpants and pulling them with such force that they ripped.  

Meanwhile, Louise was told by one of the Officers that if Colin agreed to return to his own home address, and she returned inside the flat then they would both be de-arrested. Although my client was outraged by the purported reason for her arrest, she agreed to this proposal as she was desperate for them both to simply be released. 

Louise’s handcuffs were duly removed, and she was allowed to return into her home. Colin, however, was not released; he was told he was under arrest for breach of the peace and for being drunk and disorderly, placed into a Police car, and driven to the Bridewell Police Station in Nottingham.  

The custody record stated that Colin was arrested at 23.00hrs by Special Constable Hotham and the circumstances of arrest were described as follows –

 “Officers whilst dealing with a non related matter had been approached by the DP [detained person] who is drunk shouting and swearing – DP has moved away however has repeatedly come back out of his house onto front garden shouting abuse – arrested BOP [breach of peace]”. 

 Colin denied this – the only shouting that had come from himself or Louise was when they were calling to get the dogs back into the flat. It was also noted in the custody record that Colin had red marks on his wrists from the handcuffs – consistent with his allegations that these had been tightened/twisted to cause him pain.

 A short while later, Louise arrived at the Police Station – having driven there herself – in order to establish why Colin had been arrested and to submit a complaint about the treatment that both of the couple had suffered. She subsequently received a telephone call regarding her complaint from SS Wagstaff, who did not advise her at the time that he had been one of the arresting Officers.  

After spending a miserable night in the cells, Colin was released from custody without charge at 8.50am the following morning with the custody record noting that there was “insufficient evidence” to proceed against him.

A Breach of the Peace – or A Breach by the Police?

 What is a ‘Breach of the Peace’?

Breach of the Peace is a famous, although also somewhat vague- sounding phrase of the English common law. A literal reading of the phrase might suggest that it could be committed by merely noisy, offensive or anti-social behaviour – but it is much more limited in scope than that. The essence of the offence is the commission of personal violence or imminently threatened violence (which can include violence to property, if done or threatened in the presence of its owner). In modern law, the key definition was provided by the Court of Appeal in R V Howell [1982] QB 416, as quoted with approval by the House of Lords in R. (Laporte) v Chief Constable of Gloucestershire Constabulary[2006] UKHL 55 –  

“We are emboldened to say that there is a breach of the peace whenever harm is actually done or is likely to be done to a person or in his presence to his property or a person is in fear of being so harmed through an assault, an affray, a riot, unlawful assembly or other disturbance. It is for this breach of the peace when done in his presence or the reasonable apprehension of it taking place that a constable, or anyone else, may arrest an offender without warrant.” 

Another important qualification for this arrest, is the need for the arrestee to be released as soon as the danger of any continued breach of the peace has passed – it is not an offence for which one can be detained whilst investigation/ evidence gathering is going on, because it is not an offence for which one can face subsequent prosecution and conviction. This was neatly summed up by the judgment in Chief Constable of Cleveland Police v McGrogan[2002] EWCA Civ 86: 

“where a person has been arrested for breach of the peace, the power to detain to prevent a further breach of the peace is limited to circumstances where there is a real (rather than fanciful) apprehension based on all the circumstances that if released the arrestee will renew his breach of the peace within a short time; the officer making the decision for continued detention must have an honest belief that further detention is necessary to prevent a breach of the peace, and there must be reasonable grounds for such belief; continued detention cannot be justified on the ground that sooner or later the arrestee, if released, is likely to breach the peace.” 

In my experience, Police officers routinely misuse or abuse the concept of breach of the peace – either arresting a person without sufficient grounds or keeping them arrested long after any such grounds are gone. 

Winning Damages Against the Police

 When I learned what had befallen Louise and Colin, I was happy to accept instructions to act on their behalf and I built a strong claim for compensation for them, the key points of which were as follows – 

• Louise had been restrained and detained by the Officers before they had even announced any intention to arrest her and thus, they lacked even purportedly lawful justification for their uses of force upon her.

• There was no reasonable basis to suspect that Louise was intoxicated – her speech was clear and coherent, she was steady on her feet, she was still wearing her nursing uniform – it was in fact transparent that the arresting Officer could not have genuinely believed that Louise was drunk and disorderly, and that instead he was ‘taking the name of that offence in vain’ – as a mere pretext to assert power over her.  
• Likewise, there was no reasonable basis to suspect that Louise had committed or would commit any ‘breach of the peace’ – this further offence apparently being dredged up by the Officers as an excuse after the Claimant had correctly called them out on the manifest falsity of the drunk and disorderly arrest. 
• Colin’s arrest – a much longer detention – was equally improper.  SC Hotham’s initial assertion that Colin had been arrested for “domestics” was wholly inadequate – it failed to describe any actual criminal offence. 
• There was no reasonable basis to suspect that Colin had committed any breach of the peace.  Insofar as the Officers claimed to have heard Colin shouting shortly prior to their attendance on the premises, this was clearly directed towards Louise’s dogs.  
• Yet further, any assertion that the Officers genuinely believed that Colin (who had had 4 cans of beer earlier that night) was ‘drunk and disorderly’ was substantially undermined by the fact that this alleged offence was not recorded in the custody record – strongly suggesting that the arresting Officer and/or the Custody Sergeant did not believe it had been committed. 
• Finally, even if the Officers genuinely believed that a ‘domestic’ argument or fight amounting to a breach of the peace had been occurring between my clients, such a belief was far from giving justification for the Officers to assault and arrest my clients immediately upon their entry into the premises.  Police Officers are quite correctly under a primary duty to consider and explore reasonable alternatives to violence and arrest to resolve apparent conflicts.  The Officers on this occasion could have simply tried speaking to Louise and Colin in a calm manner, and if necessary, inviting them to attend a voluntary interview at the Police Station.  Instead, they went charging into Louise’s flat like bulls into a china shop. 

I brought claims against Nottinghamshire Police on behalf of Louise and Colin for assault and battery, wrongful arrest and trespass to land. The Police’s initial response was to deny liability – presenting a very different account of what had gone on. Of course, in the absence of any body camera footage (as noted above) this meant that it was my clients’ word against that of the officers – but my long experience of such legal battles gave me the confidence to trust my clients’ account and the knowledge to identify the weaknesses in the Police case. After issuing Court proceedings against the Chief Constable, and notwithstanding the Force filing a detailed defence in which they again robustly disputed liability, I am pleased to confirm that I have recently concluded Louse and Colin’s claims for damages totalling over £28,000 plus legal costs. 

The peace that night was being broken by the Officers – not my innocent clients whom they terrorised in their own home and arrested. The Police power of arrest is supposed to be a last resort in the fight against crime – but very often, as was the case here, Officers seem to act with the aggression of an army whose objective is arrest, the biggest bullies in town.  

My clients’ names have been changed. 

The purpose of this site is to educate people about what I consider to be the fundamental rights which uphold our civil society. If you value what I am doing here, please show your appreciation by posting a positive review. Every 5 star review which I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

I have blogged before about how the criminal practice of ‘cloning’ motor vehicles can give rise to unfortunate circumstances in which innocent people are arrested.  Many of those arrests are unnecessary and I have been critical of Police decision making in situations where more careful enquiries could have identified the difference between the legitimate car and its cloned counterpart.  

Today’s blog, however, concerns a case in which the Police themselves were entirely the authors of my client’s misfortune – misidentifying his vehicle purely on the basis of generic make/colour factors without any ‘clone’ having been involved at all.

 Early one morning, in October 2023 my client Ryan was asleep at home when he was awoken by Officers knocking at the door.  Answering the door wearing only his bedclothes, Ryan was arrested by PC Griffiths of Leicestershire Police on suspicion of burglary.  Ryan was totally stunned and asked for further details of this alleged offence – all he was told was that it had taken place the previous evening in Narborough and that his vehicle had been involved.

Ryan was searched and handcuffed and the Officers then searched his house (where his sister also resided), claiming authority to do so under Section 32 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE)– which is the power that allows officers to search any premises in which an arrested person was present at the time of, or immediately before his arrest. The legality of such a search is of course contingent on the arrest itself being lawful.  

Still in a state of shock, Ryan was taken to a local custody suite, searched again, and had his DNA, fingerprints and photograph taken.  He was obliged to remove his laces from his shoes, and was then locked in a cell.  

If it wasn’t all so horribly real, my client could have been excused for thinking that he was still asleep and dreaming.  He knew that he had no connection whatsoever with this alleged offence and nor did his motor vehicle – it was a complete nightmare.   

After my client had been detained for over three and a half hours in Police custody, he was suddenly informed that he was going to be ‘refused charge’.  He was of course relieved – but still very much in the dark about what had happened in order to cause his arrest, and why things had now changed before he had even been interviewed.  A few hours after his release, Ryan was contacted by an officer called PS Moore, who informed Ryan that he was shocked by his arrest, that he would be raising an internal complaint about the matter, and he encouraged Ryan to complain as well. 

Ryan was thereafter released but remained very shaken by what had happened – and was understandably apprehensive that he might be arrested again because of some suspicion attaching to his motor car.  Understandably, he wondered whether a cloned vehicle was involved.

Ryan did indeed pursue a complaint to Leicestershire Police Professional Standards Department (PSD) who sent him a report in February 2024 in which they upheld his complaint and offered an apology. 

It transpired that what had happened was this: following a burglary at commercial premises in Narborough, a witness had reported that an orange BMW 1 Series car had been used by the suspect, but that he had been unable to get the registration number.

As there was no registration, PC Wakeham requested a search from the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system for similar vehicles in the immediate area.  When none were found, the area of the search was expanded to be county- wide, and Ryan’s vehicle was flagged up as possible match.  Bear in mind that this was based purely on make, model and colour – not the registration plate, and the search had been stretched across a very wide- ranging geographical area.  

Nevertheless, on the basis of this most tenuous of links, the decision was made to arrest my innocent client.   

During the course of the complaint investigation, PS Moore provided an account in which he explained that following Ryan’s arrest, he had reviewed the ANPR data and had noted that the last ANPR ‘hit’ for Ryan’s vehicle was a considerable distance from the crime scene, and that the pattern of hits showed that it was travelling in a manner consistent with previous journeys.  Furthermore, an orange BMW of a different model – with cloned plates – had been involved in several recent burglaries, and although the manufacturer had described Ryan’s vehicle as “sunset orange” it was in fact red in colour.   

Indeed, in addition to PS Moore several other Officers had voiced concern regarding the legitimacy of Ryan’s arrest. PS Moore stated to the complaint investigator that when he had called the Station, the Custody Sergeant PS King had admitted that he also had misgivings regarding my client’s arrest – and had authorised his detention nonetheless.

 The PSD report concluded as follows –

 “Section 24 PACE states that there must be suspicion of an offence having been committed or likely to be committed before an arrest can be made; the second part of the test is that the necessity test criteria should be met also. Both elements are required to be satisfied in order for an arrest to be made. I am not minded that there was enough for part one of the test (suspicion that [Ryan] was involved) was met. Further enquiries needed to be undertaken in respect of the vehicle and indeed, when PS Moore undertook enquiries himself, he quickly established that [Ryan] lived close by to where the last ANPR camera had picked up his vehicle and that [Ryan’s] vehicle regularly undertook the same route. There was also the opportunity to speak with [Ryan] and establish some initial facts when he first [answered] the door”.   

It therefore followed that both my client’s arrest/detention and the search of his home purportedly carried out under Section 32 of PACE was unlawful.  

Whilst this is a case which reflects poorly on those Officers of Leicestershire Police who subjected my client to the trauma of arrest, it reflects well on the pro-active PS Moore who did his duty to begin correcting the wrong that had been done to my client and to ensure that the errors and misjudgements of his colleagues were not brushed under the carpet.  Hopefully this will help prevent other innocent people suffering unnecessary arrest because of laziness and/or poor thinking on the part of Police investigators.

What it could not do, of course, was turn back time and spare my client the embarrassment, indignities and anxiety that he suffered during his unlawful arrest. Ryan’s arrest had not only caused his sister distress, but it had been witnessed by at least one of his neighbours; he had had to use the toilet whilst being observed by an Officer; he had been taken into Custody, handcuffed and dressed only in his nightclothes – and furthermore was left with real concerns about future international travel, because of visa requirements which relate to the declaration of arrests and which leave little room in their Yes/No boxes to explain the circumstances of an unlawful arrest.  

All of this could have been so easily avoided had the Police done their job properly and for this Ryan deserved appropriate compensation. I am pleased to confirm that I have this month settled his claim for damages in the sum of £15,000 plus legal costs having already secured agreement from the Police to delete all records created by reason of his arrest.  

But Ryan’s story is a reminder of how, to the long list of ‘risks of the road’ we must add another – the risk of Police misuse/ misunderstanding of ANPR data, leading to what can only be called a car-crash of an investigation.  

My client’s name has been changed.   

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A common derogatory phrase that is used about the worst Police Officers is that they are “Thugs in uniform” Such a phrase leaps to mind when we see Officers behaving like bullies or unable to control their anger when the ‘red mist’ descends. As it happens, a case which I have settled this week involves a Police Officer who offered to take off his uniform – when inviting my client for a fight in an alley way.

In April 2022, my client Mr Fazal was stopped whilst driving by PC Young and PC Parmar of West Yorkshire Police for what should have been a routine insurance check.

Whilst Mr Fazal attempted to locate his insurance documents on his phone, PC Young unnecessarily criticised and argued with my client and then put his hand on Mr Fazal’s arm. When my client protested about the officer having touched him, the two officers then combined to force him onto the ground, causing him injury. Fortunately, this injury was not more than a few scuffs and scrapes but it was nevertheless outrageous – there was no suggestion that my client had committed an offence and nor indeed did the Officers purport to arrest him.

After restraining my client on the ground, the Officers released him, and he was able to stand up. His mobile phone now had damage to its screen, but Mr Fazal was able to show the Officers his insurance details and after a few further checks the Officers returned to their car.

Mr Fazal followed the Officers in order to remonstrate with PC Young about his use of force. At this, PC Young re-exited his vehicle and said to my client “If you’d like to threaten me … I’ll gladly take the uniform off and we can go down that alleyway and we can have a fight”.

At this point – with my client flabbergasted at the officer’s attitude – PC Parmar intervened, and the Officers left.

As a result of what they had already done to Mr Fazal, he was left with cuts to his finger and his leg and bruises to his torso and right elbow. These physical injuries fortunately resolved fairly quickly – but the psychological upset which this incident has caused my client has lingered to the present day.

Mr Fazal was outraged not only by the fact that the Officers had subjected him to an unprovoked assault whilst he was trying to find his insurance details, but that when he had tried to remonstrate with them, PC Young’s response had been to menace him with threats of arrest and to try to provoke a fight.

Sadly, Mr Fazal’s grievances would only be aggravated by the manner in which West Yorkshire Police Professional Standards Department (PSD) responded to his complaint. During the course of the complaint investigation, PC Young’s body worn video recording of the incident was reviewed – however the Officer himself was not interviewed nor required to provide an account of his actions in any other way. Whilst the complaint was to some extent critical of PC Young’s actions, he was sanctioned with only the vaguest form of punishment – “To undergo learning”. We may well question what such an opaque phrase means: probably not very much – no details of any proposed ‘learning’ were provided. The whole tenor of the complaint investigation was, for myself and my client, summed up by the fact that PSD misrepresented the crucial audio from the body worn video recording in such a way as to tone down the Officer’s comments – the report misquoted Young as saying “I’ll take off this uniform and go down that alley and sort this out” rather than acknowledging that he actually said “and we can have a fight”.

My client quite rightly submitted a Request for Review to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). The IOPC review determined that the outcome of the complaint was too lenient upon PC Young for several reasons –

• When force was used against him, Mr Fazal did not present a threat and use of force was not necessary;
• PC Young’s behaviour throughout the incident was not, as PSD had asserted, ‘polite and calm’ but rather, in the view of the IOPC, “frustrated and exasperated from the start” and the Officer had not made any attempt to de-escalate any tension/conflict;
• The IOPC also identified the misquotation/minimisation of what PC Young had actually said at the crucial moment.

As a result it was determined that PC Young required Reflective Practice Review Process for situation de-escalation, Officer Safety Training, Conflict Management Skills (resolving conflict without force) and consideration as to whether he required a period of increased supervision.

It is quite understandable that this drawn out and difficult process did not restore Mr Fazal’s faith in West Yorkshire Police. Mr Fazal is someone who can see the wood rather than just individual trees and what he was most incensed about was West Yorkshire Police’s institutional response – the way in which they sought to obscure their Officer’s wrongdoing and to insulate both themselves and the individual Officer from legitimate criticism.

In this respect, PC Young’s misbehaviour was compounded by the failure of PSD to impose the appropriate sanction upon the Officer, and also in the ‘victim blaming’ tone of their written response to the complaint, in which (as highlighted above) they had apparently sought to minimise PC Young’s wrongdoing and had also suggested that Mr Fazal was guilty of “provocation”. Mr Fazal felt very strongly by their mishandling of his complaint, West Yorkshire PSD risked enabling this type of violence and abuse of power not only in the person of PC Young but in the wider policing population. To Mr Fazal this incident wasn’t only about the Police mistreating him, but the deep harm that this type of pro- police bias in the complaint system causes to our society in general. In this respect, the unprofessionalism and apparent sense of impunity displayed by PC Young during this incident are indicative of the dysfunctionality of the Police complaint system, which will not be corrected until West Yorkshire – and frankly all Police PSD Units – are seen and known to be on the side of genuine complainants rather than the Officers complained about. 

It was also noticeable that PC Parmar faced no sanction for failing to challenge PC Young’s behaviour himself. Presumably he would not have been so passive if he had witnessed a member of the public apparently trying to provoke my client into an alleyway punch up.

As I have observed before, real change in policing standards will not occur until front- line Officers routinely call out unacceptable behaviour from their colleagues as and when it is occurring, as well as PSD taking a more robust and objective approach towards complaints i.e. step- changes at both street patrol and management desk level.

As for whether even the “Reflective Practice Review Process” is anything more than management- speak jargon which involves the ticking of boxes, rather than any genuine soul -searching or real learning – we can only assume that it did not lead PC Young along the path of any serious self improvement as at no point did he offer any apology to Mr Fazal – strongly suggesting that this Reflective Review did not change what he saw in the mirror.

Thankfully, some remedy for the deep disappointment and dissatisfaction of the Police Complaint process can be found through a civil claim for restitution and validation in the form of damages. When I presented a claim for assault and battery on behalf of Mr Fazal against West Yorkshire Police arising out of this incident, they admitted “excessive force” – but offered no apology and denied my client’s entitlement to aggravated damages or exemplary damages – offering a frankly insulting settlement of only £500. 

That offer rejected, and my client’s claim robustly advanced, I am pleased to confirm that I have this week settled Mr Fazal’s claim in the sum of £24,500 damages plus legal costs.

The primary purpose of the Police is to uphold human rights and dignity and to keep the King’s peace. PC Young’s antagonistic and aggressive behaviour towards my client during this incident was the exact opposite. In the heat of the moment, he did not behave like a Police Officer, but like a street thug. The damages which I have won for my client, if not Police attitudes and responses to his complaint, fully reflect that. 

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog 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 Google review to get the word out. Every 5 star review which I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

BBC News reported last week on the case of former Lincolnshire Police Inspector Jonathan Mellor, who, whilst he was still an officer of senior rank, severely assaulted my client Shane Price in a ‘road-rage’ incident on the A46.

During the unprovoked assault, then-Inspector Mellor pushed and punched my client, and stamped upon his already injured foot, before forcing him down and pinning him on the ground. When police back-up units subsequently arrived, it was of course my client and not Inspector Mellor who was arrested. Fortunately, Shane’s then partner had captured the road-side assault on her mobile phone, allowing my client’s innocence to be vindicated.

At the Misconduct hearing, Mellor claimed to be the ‘victim’ in this matter but also bragged, in reference to his punching my client in the face – “If I’d have punched him with my full force I would have knocked him out.”

The Misconduct Panel found Mellor guilty of gross misconduct for his unjustified assault upon Shane and noted that the unrepentant ex-officer had “demonstrated inability to control himself” or to hold himself accountable for his wrongdoing. It was found that Mellor would have been dismissed from the Police service had he not already been allowed to retire.

This was not an outcome, however, for which Lincolnshire Police should take any credit. Although I will discuss the full circumstances of this case in a longer blog once Shane’s claim for damages is settled, I can reveal here that Lincolnshire Police Professional Standards Department decided that ex- Inspector Mellor had no case to answer for misconduct, despite PSD being in full possession of the shocking footage of the incident.

Even after viewing the footage – which shows in clear detail how Mellor was the aggressor, how he grabbed and pushed my client, how he punched Shane without warning in the face, and stamped on his already injured foot and threatened to “fucking put [him] down” – the PSD investigator purported to find that Mellor’s use of force was “acceptable.”

The matter only proceeded to its correct and just result after I, on behalf of Shane, appealed the original complaint decision to the Independent Office for Police Conduct and they, the IOPC, insisted that misconduct charges be brought against Mellor. Indeed, Lincolnshire PSD initially tried to resist the IOPC’s recommendations, causing the IOPC to invoke its power under Paragraph 27(4)(a) of Schedule 3 of the Police Reform Act 2002 in order to force the Police to do so, a decision which I heartily endorsed.

So justice has – belatedly been done – but here we have yet another reminder of the ‘toxic privilege’ which protects misbehaving Police Officers through the collaboration of their colleagues, consciously or sub-consciously, as evidenced here both by the behaviour of the ‘responder’ officers who came to the scene (and formally arrested my client, whilst laughing and joking with the Inspector) and the subsequent, outrageous white-washing of the complaint by PSD officers who, unlike the first responders, had seen the damning phone footage.

It is, frankly, nothing short of a betrayal of their policing duties and the public trust when PSD look for ways to let officers off the hook, rather than to hold them accountable – and deeply dismaying how common this is. Mellor may have thought he would escape accountability and ultimately he did not – but it was no thanks to Lincolnshire Police.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this week’s blog 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 Google review to get the word out. Every 5 star review which I receive makes a big difference in helping those who need the right advice to come to the right place. Thank you!

As each new year brings with it an ever rising tide of technological advancement, so this year will no doubt see more UK Police Forces following the lead of South Wales and Gwent in utilising “Operator Initiated Facial Recognition” (OIFR) mobile apps to identify suspects or missing persons, as was announced by South Wales Police shortly before Christmas.

The image taken of a person on an Officer’s mobile phone using OIFR is compared against the custody image database and/or the missing person database, and so only people who have previously been held in Police custody, or who have been officially reported as missing by their family would be capable of being identified in this way. It is promised that the photographs taken on OIFR apps will not themselves be retained, and are subject to automatic deletion after use.

Officers do not need consent to use OIFR on a person, but are certainly required to explore other less- intrusive lines of enquiry when seeking to ID someone, and must have a genuine policing purpose and reasonable grounds for their use of the device. Force cannot be used in order to take an OIFR photograph; but bear in mind that a refusal to co-operate with this particular kind of ‘photoshoot’ could be used by an Officer as a basis for arrest, as ascertaining a person’s name and address is one of the PACE Code G necessity criteria.

The use of such devices, further curtailing personal privacy in the interests of State surveillance, must be balanced, as acknowledged by the Assistant Chief Constable Nick McLain of Gwent Police, by “human decision making and oversight, ensuring that it is used lawfully, ethically and in the public interest”. Let us hope that is a mission statement which is put into practice on our streets, and not merely confined to power- point presentations.

Whilst the introduction of this technology could reduce the number of ‘mistaken identity’ arrests going forward, it is certainly not going to eliminate them all. I can think of plenty of examples from my own case work where the availability of a “facial recognition” app would not have made any difference because of a Police propensity to arrest first, ask questions later – even when the existing law as to necessity of arrest should have led Officers to pursue non- arrest investigative routes, thereby saving an innocent person from the physical – but above all mental – trauma of handcuffing and detention.

For example, I have recently settled a £17,500 claim for damages on behalf of a client who was ‘identified’ as a criminal suspect from a considerable distance (around 30 metres) by a group of officers, essentially only on the basis of generic/ racial similarities, and was then confronted by Officers brandishing a very different piece of the modern Police tool kit – not OIFR but TASER. I doubt that the gung-ho Officers who menaced my client in this fashion and forced him onto the ground before attempting to verify his identity would have taken a more delicate approach even had it been available to them; or, in other words, I strongly suspect that many Police Officers will continue to rush in where angels with facial recognition apps might fear to tread. 

You can read here some of my previous blogs and case reports dealing with the many different types of ‘mistaken identity’ arrests which have afflicted my clients –

• An arrest in which the images of the suspect relied upon were blurry/unreliable leading to misidentification of an innocent man.
• A case in which there was no image of the suspect, and my client was arrested simply on the basis of his having the same first (very common) name as the suspect.
• A case involving twin brothers.
• A man subjected to multiple wrongful arrests after his Police National Computer (PNC) record was catastrophically associated with that of a career criminal.
• An overweight man in his 60s arrested at his home despite the fact that the Police were in possession of a clear CCTV image of the suspect who was of slim build and approximately 30 years younger.
• My client who was mistaken by Officers, on the basis of a CCTV still, for the ‘Brighton Cat Killer’.
• One of the very many mistaken identity arrest which occur at airport gates despite the Police already having available to them, but failing to use, easily portable ID verification technology in the form of finger print machines and what we should perhaps term ‘plain’ common sense.

So, by all means let us embrace the new technology, which I believe will do some good in a certain number of cases, but let us not assume that it is a panacea any more than the introduction of Police body cameras or the increased roll out of taser weapons proved to be – and let us be always on guard as to its limitations and potentials for misuse.