Assault of a Police Officer - Not Guilty Verdict

Case study summary

Our client was charged with assaulting a police officer. He believed that video footage would prove that he was acting in self-defence, however, the police said that the footage did not exist. Our expert cross-examination of the officers at trial resulted in a Not Guilty verdict.

Case study

Our client was a 36-year-old father. Police officers attended a fight outside of a pub in Manchester and our client was accused of punching one of the officers in the face. This caused an open wound to form on the officer’s bottom lip.

Our client contacted us and asked us to represent him at his upcoming court hearing as he feared being sent to prison and leaving his partner to care for his son and two young daughters. Our client admitted punching the officer, however, he explained that he was acting in self-defence. Prior to the police arriving, he and his partner had been assaulted by a group of males and females. Due to the attack and commotion around him at the time, he did not see or hear the police officers identify themselves. Our client states that he felt someone grab his shoulder from behind and thought that it was a member of the group who had been attacking him. He reacted by punching this individual in an attempt to defend himself and his partner. As soon as he realised that he had punched a police officer, he immediately apologised.

We reviewed the evidence in the case. A second police officer had provided a witness statement to support the complainant's allegation and body worn footage was provided which displayed the aftermath of the assault. Upon careful review of the witness statements, we realised that both officers refered to the body worn video footage being turned on throughout the altercation but this was not reflected in the clip which was provided to us. We made multiple attempts to retrieve the missing footage, however, the police told us that there was no more footage and they could not provide us with an explanation.

One of our expert assault lawyers represented our client at his trial at the Magistrates' Court. During cross-examination of the two police officers, our lawyer was able to draw out inconsistencies between their accounts and used this undermined their accounts entirely, highlighting the missing body worn video footage as well.

Our client was found Not Guilty and he was extremely relieved to be returning home to his partner, son and daughters.