Injuries received during interaction with police - Metropolitan Police Service, May 2017

On 17 May 2017 Metropolitan Police Service officers arrested two men for possession with intent to supply in south-east London. While conducting an immediate search of nearby premises linked to one of the men, a struggle began when the occupier refused to allow the officers entry. As a result, the man sustained a cut to the head, a broken finger and a broken rib.

During the investigation, our investigators interviewed the officers, examined body-worn video (BWV) evidence available, and obtained statements from a number of witnesses, including hospital staff.

In our opinion, based on the evidence available, the officers acted with an honestly held belief when using force against the man to restrain him; no reasonable tribunal could find that the officers’ use of force was unnecessary or disproportionate in the circumstances.

Our investigation highlighted the fact that a number of officers had not activated their BWV before approaching the premises. We considered that this should be dealt with as performance, and recommended that the officers receive management action relating to use of the equipment and the importance of activating BWV in such situations.

After reviewing our report, the MPS agreed that none of the officers involved had a case to answer for use of excessive force. Regarding the use of BWV, they determined that some of the officers had not turned their BVW through human error, this being new equipment at that time, and disagreed that management action was appropriate. They proposed to deal with this through a debrief to assist all officers concerned in this investigation with learning from this event.

We agreed that their proposal was appropriate.