MPS officer dismissed after resisting arrest led to `I`ll fight you` handcuffs row
A Metropolitan Police Service officer has lost his job after a row outside a bar which ended with him being overpowered by four colleagues when he resisted being handcuffed the next morning.
Oct 27, 2016
By Joe Shine
A Metropolitan Police Service officer has lost his job after a row outside a bar which ended with him being overpowered by four colleagues when he resisted being handcuffed the next morning.
A three-day misconduct hearing was told how Police Constable Mark Toulson had been drinking with a friend in Wimbledon on November 27, 2014 when he is alleged to have used threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour as well as assaulting a fellow police officer.
In December 2014, Wimbledon Magistrates Court heard PC Toulson suffered a head injury and was being taken from hospital when he said he would walk down to the police van “without a fuss, but if you handcuff me Ill fight you”.
The Wandsworth borough officer pleaded guilty to obstructing/resisting police at St Georges Hospital in London at a further court hearing in July last year.
He was ordered to pay £443 in fines and costs.
The court heard PC Toulson had been arrested at Hemingways Lounge Bar in Wimbledon Village, and was initially charged with assaulting two police officers and using threatening behaviour.
He pleaded not guilty to the three counts and the Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence because it had not replied to a defence expert who supported PC Toulsons claim he was suffering automatism, an action performed unconsciously or involuntarily, and was not responsible for his actions.
It cannot be ruled out he was suffering the effects of a head injury and a CT scan was required at the hospital, said Heather Oliver, defending.
This is a man who was not in his normal state of mind.
Miss Oliver said: Officers were seeking to transport him from the hospital to the van and it was his obstructiveness that led to this incident.
After hearing all the evidence and mitigation, the misconduct panel deemed the most appropriate outcome for PC Toulson to be dismissal without notice. as been formally dismissed after a three-day misconduct hearing.