Police keep their jobs after smashing up suspect's car
Police keep their jobs after smashing up suspect's car
From Guardian.co.uk
Quote:
A secret police disciplinary hearing has ruled that six Metropolitan police officers who smashed up a suspect's car used excessive force but can keep their jobs.
Video footage shows the detective sergeant and five constables leaping from an unmarked car shouting "attack, attack", before smashing baseball bats and a pickaxe handle into the side windows and windscreen of a Mini stopped in traffic.
The plainclothes officers – all members of the Enfield crime squad in north London – then pull out the driver, Jonathan Billinghurst, and push him to the floor, where he is arrested.
At least one of the officers is wearing a non-police-issue jacket with the words "police detective, crime squad" on the back – similar to those worn by US police.
On Wednesday Scotland Yard released the findings of the six officers' disciplinary hearing, which took place over the past seven days behind closed doors.
It followed a 16-month anti-corruption inquiry by the Met's directorate of professional standards, into a whistleblower's claims that detectives had assaulted and abused suspects, used excessive force to stop a stolen car, and taken property for their own use in the police station, including a Mercedes, other cars, flat screen televisions and other electrical goods.
The investigation – supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission – involved 43 separate inquiries and targeted all 15 officers in the Enfield crime squad. An allegation that two suspects were "waterboarded" during their arrest was not upheld.
The inquiry also uncovered evidence that senior managers knew of the culture in the crime squad but did nothing about it – one police source suggested this was because the unit was producing "good results".
The three superintendents involved were interviewed as witnesses and found to have been "generally aware" of what was going on. None have been reprimanded and all three have since been promoted to chief officer rank.
Scotland Yard said on Wednesday that the six officers – who are the first to face disciplinary action as a result of the inquiry – had been found guilty of misconduct but would not be sacked.
The Yard said the detective sergeant involved had been demoted to detective constable, and the five constables had been formally reprimanded.
A spokesman said: "The misconduct panel found that the detective sergeant failed to properly supervise five officers by allowing them to use baseball bats and a pickaxe handle to carry out the stop and detain the driver.
"The five other officers were found to have used more force than was reasonable or necessary to affect the stop by using a non-issue baseball bat, hitting the rear offside window causing it to smash."
The Crown Prosecution Service, who were passed a file of evidence by the police, said last year that they were not going to charge any of the 15 officers involved either for theft or misconduct in a public office.
Commander Peter Spindler, head of the directorate of professional standards said: "They abused their position of trust and authority and by doing so breached the high professional standards expected by the public and the vast majority of outstanding Metropolitan Police Service officers."
Local MP Andy Love criticised the secrecy of the disciplinary panel. He told The Guardian: "I am concerned that this hearing was held behind closed doors. There is a need for much greater transparency and the way that this was carried out, the way the police have investigated themselves, will do nothing to restore public confidence."
The video footage of the six launching an attack on Billinghurst's car was uncovered during the inquiry, which involved ten months of surveillance before officers from the Met's directorate of professional standards executed search warrants at Edmonton police station.
Billinghurst was being targeted, the detectives claimed, because they had intelligence that he had a history of carrying weapons, had made death threats to the police and had threatened to shoot a police officer. Billinghurst's twin brother had been killed two years before in a head-on collision and the officers claimed that intelligence showed he held a grudge against the police because a police car was involved in the crash.
Anti-corruption officers found nothing to support any of the intelligence that the six officers claimed to have gathered.
The Met said it was still considering further disciplinary action against the other officers who had been investigated.
Seven officers remain suspended and three officers are on restricted duties.
