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'Vicious racism' costs Met �250,000 Respectable family man abused, assaulted and falsely accused Clare Dyer, The Guardian, Saturday February 1,
2003 A middle-aged black man with no criminal record who was violently assaulted by police officers, subjected to racist abuse and prosecuted on trumped-up charges won nearly �250,000 damages yesterday, one of the biggest awards ever made for police misconduct. Judge Michael Dean, at Central London county court, ordered the Metropolitan police to pay the damages to Sylbert Farquharson, 57, described by the judge as "a respectable, middle-aged family man of good character". The sum includes exemplary damages, which are awarded only against defendants who have acted "in an oppressive, arbitrary or unconstitutional manner as agents of the state". Mr Farquharson, then a delivery van driver, arrived in Landor Road, Stockwell, south London, in July 1995, just after his cousin, Stephen Smith had been arrested for protesting to police about the handcuffing of a black cafe owner who was being searched on suspicion of involvement in dealing cannabis. The cafe proprietor, Clinton Washington, who was in his 50s, had no criminal record. But police said they had seen him wave to a black man in a BMW car and thought he might be involved with drugs. Mr Smith told police the handcuffs on Mr Washington, who offered no resistance, were too tight. Officers arrested Mr Smith for obstruction. When Mr Farquharson arrived on the scene, he saw his cousin and went to find out what was happening. Judge Dean said he had been "assaulted by three police officers and thrown facedown in the gutter in the presence of members of the public, who were rightly appalled". He was restrained with two sets of handcuffs. They were supposed to be doublelocked so as not to ratchet up and cut into his wrists, but the police neglected to do this. He suffered permanent damage to his wrists and has been left with chronic pain syndrome. A police officer knelt on his back and called him "a fucking black bastard", he told the court. He was taken to Brixton police station in south London where PC Kevin Bridgeman, who was asked by another officer what to do with a shoe wrenched from Mr Farquharson's foot, suggested it could be tied to a belt loop, adding: "He's a fucking coon, let's give him a fucking tail." Independent witnesses, including a black college lecturer and a white probation officer, gave evidence backing up Mr Farquharson's account. The judge said Mr Farquharson had been "subjected to explicit racist abuse in the street and a particularly vicious and cowardly form of racist abuse at the police station". Mr Farquharson and Mr Smith were prosecuted, but the case against them was thrown out by a magistrate. "Unhappily, the officers felt obliged to invent an account of events which they knew to be untrue in order to justify their actions," the judge said. "This untrue account was persisted in and led to the unsuccessful prosecution." The prosecution had been brought to disguise their unlawful actions. He ruled that the police had assaulted, falsely imprisoned and maliciously prosecuted Mr Farquharson and Mr Smith, and assaulted Mr Washington, who was taken to Brixton station and strip-searched. No drugs were found. The police settled claims brought by Mr Smith and Mr Washington out of court for �80,000, including costs. The judge said he was satisfied that Mr Farquharson's physical and psychological injuries meant that he would never work again. He awarded him �243,488. He added: "There is a clear public interest in condemning racist behaviour on the part of persons in authority in order to assure the diverse elements of our community that the police have no warrant to treat any citizen with contempt and oppression." Mr Farquharson's solicitor, Tony Murphy of Bindman & Partners, said: "This judicial finding represents an excoriating indictment on officers who remain in their jobs. I am referring the file to the director of public prosecutions and call on Sir John Stephens to suspend these officers with immediate effect." |