lmsbman

I agree. You need to be careful about making a complaint of unlawful arrest. Basically, a Police Officer can arrest a person when he 'suspects' a crime has been committed. This arrest will be lawful providing there is 'evidence' to suspect, even if no charges are ever brought. So in this case, the officer 'suspected' that tiggers mate had deliberately driven at him in a manner that amounted to an attempted assault. Therefore the arrest will probably be lawful.

I would wait and see what happens first. If the whole case gets dropped, then make a complaint that the officer was abusing his authority and was malicious in his attempts to prosecute.

Yes it does and gets referred to the professional standards department who investigate. A copy also goes to the Police Complaints Authority (they've got a new name noe, but I can't remember what it is!!). They are independent of the Police and will supervise investigations. Most complaints are treated seriously. The problem arises by the fact that a lot of people put malicious complaints in against an officer who dealt with them, in the hope that it will make them 'drop' the charges. Unfortunately, these complaints will not be investigated until the matter has been dealt with at court, by which time the complainer doesn't pursue it any further.
The whole complaint system is clogged up at the moment due to these malicious complaints. In my force it takes an average of 18 months for a full investigation of a complaint.
If you have a genuine reason to complain then I actively encourage you to do so. However, if you just want to 'muddy the waters', I would ask you to think twice. By doing so, you could end up delaying the investigation of a 'real bad copper'.

G-STAR

Did we ever have a conclusion to this case?

TDT

That would be the Independant Police Complaints Commission - www.ipcc.gov.uk

tiggers

Update for those who were following this:

Well as it stands nothing has happened on this whatsoever. As it stands the CPS have not decided whether to prosecute or not as yet and my mate has been unable to find out if the officer has finally made his statement. All in all one big mess!!

tiggers.

Leslie

I think Suresh was being absolutely logical in the circumstances and agree with what he said.

This is a worrying situation and I suppose it will impossible to find an independent witness to it all.

The fact that he was arrested in that way and the car was impounded and kept means to me that they are trying as much as they can to find some kind of evidence against your friend.

He certainly does need a good lawyer, he must also try to identify the copper who said he did not understand what was happening. He may be honest about the whole thing.

I would also write a personal letter of complaint to the Chief Constable in very positive terms quoting compensation for false arrest and imprisonment and I would copy it to the local press.

I shudder to think what it must be like to live in a complete police state where you have no real recourse to justice. I hope it never comes to that in this country although some of the "modernisation" of our laws is worrying to say the least.

Les

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

To quote the old Britsh Rail advert: "We're getting there".

Alcazar

Brendan Hughes

Wouldn't have happened if he was carrying his ID card, you know.

TaviaRS

Has he heard anything yet?

RichA

Yeah, damnit! I read all these pages and don't know the outcome! Bah...

--Rich

PhilA

me too.

seanks

Any update to the outcome of this mess?