Jail for PC filmed kicking and punching man being arrested
Martin Wainwright Saturday October 19, 2002 The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,814970,00.html
A police officer caught on video as he kicked and punched a man was jailed for two months yesterday, but left court on bail pending an appeal.
Members of PC Keith Empsall’s family burst into tears at Leeds magistrates court as a security guard prepared to handcuff the 42-year-old and take him down to the cells.
The warder stepped back when Empsall’s counsel, Paul Greaney, asked for bail for the officer, who has no previous convictions or disciplinary record during 24 years’ service. Empsall was convicted of common assault by Leeds magistrates last month.
District judge Christopher Darnton told the officer, who has been suspended from duty since the incident in June last year, that he had “wrestled” over four weeks to choose a sentence.
Empsall was filmed by a student in Wakefield, who heard a fracas in the street outside his flat. An earlier, three-day trial was shown footage of him laying into an apparently unresisting neighbour, Christopher Wilson, 27, and dragging him to a police van.
The court heard that the incident followed an attack by untraced men on the car of a man who had called to collect the belongings of Mr Wilson’s girlfriend, who had ended their relationship. Mr Wilson admitted spending the evening drinking, but denied being violent when the police arrived.
Judge Darnton said: “I accept that day in, day out, police officers have difficult tasks to perform – it is often a thin dividing line between what is and what is not unlawful. But in this case you have unlawfully transcended that line.
“This was an assault committed in a position of trust and I believe the public deserves more from a police officer.”
In mitigation, Greaney told Judge Darnton that Empsall had an “exemplary character”. A probation service report on him accepted he had been dealing with an “obstreperous and obstructive” person.
West Yorkshire police, who will dismiss Empsall if his appeal against conviction fails, said: “It is a matter of regret when one of its officers is held to have fallen below the high standards expected of them.”
Here is the collected info about the backgroud to this story.
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_09_15_tash_lodge_archive.html#81869164
I go into all this, since I think this and the american cases, described, show the value of getting ‘proper evidence’, and how hard it is for courts to ignore. Again, a main reason for my interest in photography.
BBC report on the students video
“Student’s video ‘catches police attack'”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,526978,00.html
