The Actions Against the Police Team represented a young black man in a claim for assault and battery, false imprisonment, misfeasance in public office and malicious prosecution.

In December 2018, our client was out in Shoreditch in the early hours of the morning with a friend. After being approached by a group of young men whom they did not know and being accused of assaulting one of them, they decided to leave the area to avoid the situation escalating. Both men got into the car they had been travelling in but before they could leave, a number of officers from the Metropolitan Police Service’s Territorial Support Group arrived in a van. They informed our client and his friend that they had been called to report a fight to which they responded that they had not been involved and had, in fact, been attempting to leave the area.

Following a brief dialogue our client was arrested and taken to the floor, where he was restrained by several officers. One of the officers had his knee on our client’s neck leaving our client unable to breath. Our client was struck several times with officers’ fists and knees before being handcuffed. The officers placed our client in leg restraints. He was violently pushed into the cage in the police van and once inside, was pepper sprayed in the face.

Our client was detained for a total of 19 hours following arrest and was charged with assaulting a police office and an offence under s.4 of the Public Order Act. The case against our client was pursued to trial which took place over the course of just under 2 weeks. After a full criminal trial, the jury acquitted our client, who had pleaded not guilty throughout.

As a result of the above sequence of events, our client suffered psychiatric injury.

We obtained £25,000 in compensation for our client after the police settled the claim in July 2021.

ST was represented by Tessa Hutchinson of the Actions Against the Police Department.