Woman injured when taken to the ground - Metropolitan Police Service, October 2018

On 11 October 2018, two Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) uniformed officers patrolling in central London spoke to a woman they saw behind shrubbery in an area known to be frequented by drug users. The officers explained that they would search her under Section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The woman put her hand in her pocket and did not follow instructions to remove her hand. One of the officers took hold of her hand and a struggle began between the officers and the woman. The two officers called for assistance and two more officers arrived within a minute. Shortly after the arrival of the other officers, the woman was taken to the ground. She sustained an injury to her right arm, suspected to be a broken arm. She was taken to hospital but discharged herself before treatment could be completed.

The woman was subject to a missing person’s enquiries but, to date, has not been located. Our investigators were therefore unable to obtain an account from her.

The incident was captured on body-worn video (BWV). We analysed this footage as well as statements from the officers involved.

One officer was treated as a subject to the investigation and interviewed under caution in relation to their use of force. They were also interviewed in relation to the contents of their statement, which did not accord with events as shown on BWV.

The evidence appeared to suggest that the officer had not considered all the options available to them – in particular, utilising the additional officers who had responded to the request for support. It would appear that this led to the officer deciding on a course of action which ultimately caused injury when there were other, potentially safer, options available.

Evidence also showed that, when they gave their statement after the incident, the officer did not give much detail or clarity when discussing the means by which they brought the woman to the ground – which was one of the key moments of the incident.

Based on the evidence available, we were of the opinion that a reasonable tribunal, properly directed, could find a case to answer against the officer for breaching the standards of professional behaviour with regards to use of force. However, we did not consider this to be so serious as to warrant any conduct proceedings. We suggested that the officer would benefit from being given the opportunity to reflect and learn from this experience, with the support of structured management action, in relation to their use of force.

We did not consider that the officer’s conduct in relation to the evidence they gave in their statement reached the threshold for misconduct, but recommended that the officer should also reflect on the importance of clarity, accuracy and detail in witness statements.

We completed our investigation in May 2019.

After reviewing our report, the MPS agreed that the officer would receive management action to reflect and learn from this experience in relation to detailed note writing.

In 2022, the investigation was considered as part of a wider piece of work we did to study stop and search cases nationally.