Officers told they can seek damages after being `let down` by force

Four Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) officers have won the right to sue the force’s commissioner after they were “branded abusive thugs” for an alleged assault on a terror suspect in 2003.

The court of appeal ruled the four officers could pursue a claim for compensation after the MPS was accused of “letting them down badly” as it failed to defend them in a personal injury case in 2009.

Babar Ahmad claimed he was punched, kicked, throttled and mocked while the officers touched his “private parts”, when he was arrested at his home in Tooting, south-west London.

It was also alleged that he was taken downstairs to a prayer room, forced into a praying position and officers asked “where is your god now?”.

Although the MPS originally denied these claims, it agreed to pay Ahmad £60,000 in damages after lawyers for the force’s then commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, admitted he had been a victim of “serious, gratuitous and prolonged” violence.

Following Ahmad’s successful injury claim, his solicitors asked the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to reconsider the evidence.

The CPS concluded “there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest” to take legal action against the four officers involved in the arrest “contrary to the Offences Against the Person Act 1981”.

Police Constable’s Rod James-Bowen, Nigel Cowley, Mark Jones and Detective Constable John Donohue were charged of assault but were acquitted at trial in 2011.

On Wednesday (November 30), judges ruled the four were entitled to bring their damages claim “for economic and reputational harm based on a breach of a duty of care at common law”.

They added the commissioner`s admission of liability “unfairly branded them as abusive thugs” which caused “stress of a criminal trial and damage to their prospects of promotion”.

The Babar Ahmed case was one of the first investigations the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) had to handle following its establishment in April 2004.

However, as Ahmad’s formal complaint to the MPS was lodged before its establishment, the IPCC could only supervise the investigation which led to a disciplinary hearing for the excessive use of force against one officer. It was later concluded there was no case to answer.

Further complaints against the MPS were made by Ahmad in June 2005, claiming conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, fabricated evidence in respect of intelligence reports and the deliberate desecration of a Quran which belonged to him.

The IPCC concluded that none of these complaints were substantiated but made a number of recommendations to improve operations of this nature in the future.

Babar Ahmad was jailed in the US in 2012 after fighting an eight-year extradition battle for setting up a website which provided material support to the Taliban.

He was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison, but was released in June 2015 after his time in custody was considered.