Decision to clear man of assaulting police officers was 'fundamentally flawed'
Two senior judges have criticised magistrates over their decision to clear a man accused of assaulting two police officers who said they were restraining him for his own safety because he was “very drunk”.
Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Saini said a decision to dismiss charges against Hassan Ahmed, on the basis that the two officers were not “acting in the execution of their duty” when assaulted, was “fundamentally flawed”.
They said “good faith actions” by police officers trying to assist people who appeared to be in distress were “likely be within the concept of police functions”.
Max Hill, the Director of Public Prosecutions, had mounted a High Court appeal against the decision, made by magistrates at Thames Magistrates’ Court, in Bow, East London, in August 2020.
Judges upheld the appeal and said different magistrates should reconsider the case.
The two police officers had told magistrates how they went to a property in north London in June last year after anti-social behaviour reports. They said they found Mr Ahmed lying in a communal hallway “clearly very drunk”.
The officers said they had no intention of arresting Mr Ahmed but restrained him to keep him safe until an ambulance arrived. They said he had posed an “imminent danger” to himself due to his “intoxicated state”.
Magistrates heard that Mr Ahmed had kicked and punched both officers, and spat at one of them, while being restrained. He had then been arrested.
Lawyers representing Mr Ahmed said police had not intended to arrest him and had restrained him in a way which was not an acceptable use of force.
They said the force used was therefore unlawful and argued the two officers were acting “outside the exercise of their functions”.
Magistrates had ruled in Mr Ahmed’s favour and concluded he had “no case to answer”.
They decided the two officers were not “acting in the execution of their duty”. The two judges said the magistrates had been wrong.
“In our view, proportionate and good faith actions by the police to assist those who appear to be in distress, or to be at risk of causing harm to themselves or others, would in principle likely be within the concept of police ‘functions’, whether or not some form of touching or handling of a person takes places in the course of such conduct,” Dame Victoria said in a written ruling published online on Thursday.
“It is counter-intuitive to our minds that where the police in any given case are trying to protect an individual from harm to themselves or others, because for example, the individual is intoxicated or under the influence of drugs or highly vulnerable or distressed, or teetering on the edge of a railway platform or at risk of staggering into a road, some reasonable preventative physical intervention cannot take place without it being characterised as unlawful, or in excess of police functions for that matter, unless the police have when so intervening, an intention to arrest. The justices’ approach in this case was fundamentally flawed.”
