UK: 1 million damages in 4 years
01 November 1997
Stoke Newington police station in north London has a long history of corruption, racism and brutality which has seen officers jailed for involvement in drug dealing and even stealing property from corpses. Two recent cases mean that over £1 million in awards and damages has been paid out in court cases involving officers from the station in the past 4 years.
Elsewhere, in west London the Metropolitan police paid out £80,000 after police assaults on 3 men in two separate incidents while in south London two police officers were jailed following a racist assault and damages of £45,600 was paid in another case.
North London: In November, after a ten week trial, PC Paul Evans was found guilty at the Old Bailey of assaulting a student, Ben Swarbrick, who was attending a music festival for the homeless in May 1994. Mr Swarbrick told the court that PC Evans kicked him at least twenty times and beat him with his truncheon in the street and later at the police station. Described as "a coward and a bully" by the judge, Evans was convicted of assault and affray and jailed for 6 months. Six more police officers, some of whom were named, but not prosecuted, in the Operation Jackpot inquiry into corruption at the police station, were acquitted of conspiring to pervert the course of justice, assault and false imprisonment. They will remain suspended pending disciplinary hearings which will decide if there are any matters outstanding against them.
Within two days of Evans' conviction the Metropolitan police was forced to pay out £38,000 compensation over the arrest, by officers from Stoke Newington, of two black men, Wayne Taylor and Leroy McDonnel, who suffer from sickle cell anaemia. They were detained, in February 1995, and say they were told it was for being "in a drugs-area" (Hackney) and racially abused; when no drugs were found they were charged with threatening behaviour. After they were acquitted in May 1995 they won a civil action against the officers claiming wrongful arrest, false imprisonment, assault, trespass, malicious prosecution and negligence.
West London: In August the Metropolitan police paid out £80,000 for assaults on three men by officers who are still serving as policemen. Mark Thomas accepted £30,000 after being kicked and punched by officers at a demonstration in west London in April 1989; they falsified a case against him and he was charged with affray but acquitted in March 1990.
In the second incident, Timothy Murphy and John Racz were in a public house in Notting Hill when they were assaulted by police officers as they cleared it at closing time. Murphy was punched and kicked, needing hospital treatment, before the two men were arrested. The police officers then, according to the mens' statement, "maliciously fabricated a false account...[and] put it forward to justify their own unlawful conduct, knowing the defendants were innocent".
South London: In south London 2 policemen were jailed and a third received a suspended sentence, at the Old Bailey, after an horrific attack on a black man. Harold Benn was stopped by officers in Tooting, south London, in 1990, and accused of being a car thief; when he protested his innocence he was thrown into the back of a police van and subjected to a torrent of racist abuse before being beaten beyond recognition. PC Alec Mason, nicknamed "King of the Beat", was jailed for two and a half years and PC Alec Mason was jailed for 4 months; a third officer, PC Toby Fletcher, was given a suspended sentence.
In another incident, in Brixton, police have paid out £45,000 damages to a student, Earl Hill, after he was falsely imprisoned and maliciously prosecuted. He was charged with obstructing police and using threatening behaviour, but was acquitted at Camberwell Green Magistrates Court.
The Met have paid £20 million in compensation and costs since 1986. Many of the officers involved retire on medical grounds to avoid allegations