Client Acquitted of Assaulting a Police Officer Acting in the Execution of Her Duty
Our client is a trainee mental health nurse. If he had been convicted of this offence it would have destroyed his career.
Background
The prosecution case stated that police thought our client was involved in a drug deal and wanted to search him under the s23 Misuse of Drugs Act.
A police officer found our client in a pub and detained him to search him. The officer told our client he was to be searched and took hold of his arm to replace handcuffs on him.
Our client pulled away from the police officer and ran out the door. As he ran, another officer tried to stop him. Our client was said to have forcefully barged into her, breaking her hand, before making off.
At trial at Birmingham Magistrates Court, our client accepted that he had ran into the police officer whilst fleeing from the search. Our client stated he was in possession of a small amount of cannabis and didn't want to get into trouble.
Our Involvement
We argued that the officer who detained our client was not acting lawfully because he had not introduced himself before detaining him.
The officer gave evidence, saying that the way he carried out the search was good practice, and that he was doing his job in the proper way.
Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act police officers must give their name and police station before they carry out a search. We argued at trial that the police officer had to introduce himself before he took hold of our client. This meant that the detention was unlawful, and our client was legally allowed to run away.
We further argued that because the detention was unlawful, and our client was allowed to flee, the injured officer was acting unlawfully when trying to stop him. As she was acting unlawfully she was not acting in the execution of her duty, and our client could therefore not be guilty of assaulting an officer acting in the execution of their duty.
Outcome
The Court accepted this argument, and our client was found not guilty after trial.
Our client was represented at trial by Georgina Ellis and the litigator was Manpreet Hayre.