Police cleared of misconduct over statements on search of man who died
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Version 0 of 1. Five police officers who changed their accounts of a stop and search carried out on a man who later died have been cleared of misconduct by a disciplinary panel. Thames Valley officers DS Jason Liles, DC Richard Bazeley and PCs Kate Granger, Chris Pomery and Howard Wynne admitted deleting aspects of their initial statements, including references to use of force, from accounts subsequently provided to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) of their encounter with Habib “Paps” Ullah, a 39-year-old father of three. Ullah, from Slough, Berkshire, was declared dead at Wycombe General hospital on the evening of 3 July 2008, around 90 minutes after the car in which he was travelling was stopped by officers in High Wycombe. He was struck on the back by Liles during the incident, but there was no suggestion that this caused Ullah’s death and the officer said he slapped him to stop him swallowing class A drugs. Liles was cleared of another charge of misconduct in relation to the slap. Explaining the panel’s decision after two days of deliberations at Shaw House, in Newbury, Berkshire, the chair, assistant chief constable Laura Nicholson, said: “The panel finds on overwhelming evidence, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, that all amendments were made in accordance with legal advice … The production of the draft statement was properly considered as merely part of the process of producing a final signed statement.” Nicholson said the panel found all of the officers to be truthful witnesses and that as the solicitor employed by the Police Federation had advised them they could be suspects, they did not have a duty to inform the IPCC of the existence or details of their initial statements because they were subject to legal privilege. The panel also found that Liles’s use of force was “necessary, reasonable and proportionate”, taken in an attempt to “prevent serious injury or death”. Ullah’s cousin Zia Ullah said: “We are certainly disappointed by the outcome of the hearing but it will doesn’t reduce our desire to keep fighting for answers and justice. It’s our view the officers most definitely brought Thames Valley police into disrepute … It means that anything any officer does from now can be hidden behind legal advice.” The alterations to the officers’ statements, described as “breathtaking” by Gerard Boyle, who presented the case against them, included: • Bazeley removing his description of the back slap on Ullah as being delivered “with some force”. • Wynne’s deletion of his description of another occupant of the car shouting: “You’re strangling him.” • Pomery replacing the word “grabbed” in relation to Ullah’s neck with “held”. Boyle argued that regardless of the advice of the lawyer, the officers had a public duty to provide a full account of the stop and search, which they should have been aware of. He said Liles’s slap was unnecessary and disproportionate and the officer should have given Ullah time to comply with an instruction to spit out or show what was in his mouth before striking him. An initial IPCC investigation based on written statements from the officers involved cleared the officers of any wrongdoing in March 2010. But in December that year the officers admitted under oath at the inquest that they had removed potentially key evidence from their written statements to the IPCC, claiming they had been told to do so by a Police Federation lawyer. The police watchdog launched a new investigation and then ordered Thames Valley police to hold a public disciplinary hearing. |