Police Ombudsman: Officers Cleared Of Injuring Woman

A Police Ombudsman investigation has cleared PSNI officers of giving a woman a black eye and using excessive force.

The quashed complaint was in relation to an incident outside a Belfast nightclub in July 2018.

The woman claimed she approached officers to explain why she had been asked to leave the nightclub when she was handcuffed and thrown to the ground.

She also alleged that police were abusive and laughed at her as she was being taken to the station, and refused her requests to contact her solicitor or phone her daughter while in custody.

Police Ombudsman investigators interviewed the officers involved and examined video footage from the nightclub retrieved from on-street CCTV cameras, as well as body worn video footage.

They also viewed CCTV captured at Musgrave police station.

The officers claimed the woman was intoxicated, verbally abusive, and ignored several requests to calm down before attempting to walk off.

They added that she struggled and hit out when they tried to restrain her, and was taken to the ground so that handcuffs could be applied.

CCTV footage from the nightclub showed the woman talking to a number of officers before raising both arms and attempting to walk off, at which stage she was restrained. 

Body worn police footage also recorded officers telling her repeatedly to stop swearing, and an officer accusing her of biting him. At one stage the woman says "you are hurting my head", to which an officer replies: "I'm holding your head to stop it hitting off the ground."

None of the officers noticed any signs of the woman having suffered a black eye. Records of an examination by a doctor in police custody noted an area of tenderness to the woman's left cheek, redness to her wrists and some bruising to her arms.

The officers who had been in the cell van as she was being taken to custody all denied having been abusive to her.

CCTV footage from police custody also showed that the woman had made a request to contact her daughter, but was unable to give officers her number or an alternative means of contacting her.

Police records also indicated that a voice message had been left for her solicitor in the early hours of the morning, and enquiries confirmed that a solicitor called back later that morning.

The Police Ombudsman investigator concluded that there was no grounds for action against any officer over their handling of the incident



(JG/CM)