That’s the headline on this interesting piece over on the Our Kingdom site:
In the aftermath of the G20 protests many predicted that no sort of justice could be expected from either the Independent Police Complaints commission (IPCC), the courts or the Met when it comes to holding the police force to account. The recent ruling that Sergeat Delroy Smellie is not guilty of assault for his attack on Nicola Fisher is yet another indication that there is no accountability within British policing.
You can read the full piece here.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Is it me, or is British politics missing a Conservative Party?
The very lost tunnels of the Hereford and Gloucester Canal
Do those "Winning Here" posters and bar charts really actually work?
Are some premature births caused by a average lower mitochondrial membrane potential in the baby?
Black History Month
Katharine Pindar
Ian Patterson
nvelope2003
David Warren
Peter Martin
29 Comments
The title here is factually wrong. There was accountability. He stood trial. That he was acquitted does not change this.
If anything, the affront to justice has been bringing this to court based on a ten second clip and Fisher’s testimony.
Even watching the grainy YouTube recording, I could see Fisher was seeking a confrontation and had received warning from Smellie (which, please, can everyone start pronouncing ‘Smillie’?). She received a blow to her thigh muscle-mass. Would people have preferred he elbowed her out the way?
It was a highly charged situation which *all* the crowd goading the Police after Ian Tomlinson’s death (which I do think was grossly excessive). Bear in mind, this was just a couple of months after major riots over Gaza in which Police had been physically assaulted, including one beaten unconscious with a metal pole.
Hold street-protests, by all means, but they are not computer games which can be reset whenever something goes wrong.
@Alec – your piece is a disgraceful apologia for police brutality; wait till it’s your turn to be beaten up by this gang of out-of-control thugs
Felix Holt, try reading that again… paying especial attention to what I said about Ian Tomlinson.
I do not claim to make any comment that is in conflict with due process in the case of Nicola Fisher but is was very clear from the media footage of this vicious baton wielding incident, that P/Sgt Fisher struck her on the thigh that caused a big amount of bruising to the upper leg.
It was reported that Police Sgt. Smellie claimed that he saw Nicola Fisher holding something in her right hand, that was in fact a carton of orange juice but he considered in the heat of the G20 demo. to hit her with his flailing baton!.
I would ask that there is a much closer scrutiny of Police Officers carrying batons at public demonstrations, in future, so to prevent any further episodes of baton swinging in this targeted method on unsuspecting demonstrators?
Patrick, that’s a fair assessment. I would also question the deployment, in the first place, of the Territorial Support Group (of which Smellie is a member) to this location – but that’s a procedural issue, not the individual responsibility of individual TSG officers.
At the end of the day, a District Court judge – with access to far more photographic and witness evidence than any one juror of the media kangaroo court – has decided that the Prosecution did not prove their case. It’s uncorroborated, but I strongly suspect those refusing to accept this would also (mis-)quote the concept of innocent until proven guilty if it were someone who’d been opposing Western state power.
Part of the trade off with living in a functioning civil society is the knowledge that the state has *some* recourse to violence. What would happen if I went into Cowley Street and started pocketing free leaflets or even carried out one of the chairs? I’m sure the Police would be called!
The filth get away with thuggery yet again.
Erm… here are some of the eye witness accounts of the incidents given at the trial, on which Smellie’s acquittal was based. Two witnesses said that Fisher’s behaviour was aggressive:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8583760.stm
Let us not fall prey to a 10 second YouTube video, a load of media hype and prejudice and assumption that the police are thugs.
I haven’t kept abreast of full evidence in the court, but it seems as if justice may well have been served.
In fact, isn’t there a danger that this concentration on one officer’s actions in the heat of the moment simply distracts attention from the more important issues about the accountability of those who make the decisions both about how these officers are trained, and about how they are deployed in policing demonstrations? It wasn’t officer Smellie’s decision to send the TSG in – has the person who made that decision been held accountable?
I doubt it, Malcolm. That said, I still believe Smellie acted entirely properly (unlike the TSG officer who beat Ian Tomlinson).
Observe his body language… he’s holding his upper body away from Fisher, with one leg keeping further space between them and, initially, his arm gesturing her away. She, on the other hand, is going at it like a bantam hen… face partially concealed by a peak cap, head ducking and rushing him.
I’ve witnessed a woman of similar build having to be restrained by half a dozen officers. Recently, in Edinburgh, a slight woman blinded a bouncer (with her stiletto heel). Smellie was quite reasonable to fear personal injury.
As far as I’m concerned, she was seeing how far she could push him. She found out, and I bet it hurt. I am relieved she’s now alright, but she was the architect of it.
Plus, she has only been referred to as “an animal rights activist”. This is not a job. I am left with the impression she’s one of those professional activists – not least ‘cos she declined to testify lest her past was mentioned – with no income beyond family assistance or state benefits. But, it’s alright now, as she’s in receipt of 26 grand from a national newspaper.
Alek with regards to smelly:) are you him?,
I cannot believe your thought process for trying to justify a person TRAINED to a high degree of controlling these types of situations.
This guy just lost it plain and simple, sure its a pressure situation but you have to be able to function. He was trained for it.
If any rational person were there in place of him you wouldnt be spamming your “facts” The police are moronically heavy handed in a lot of cases. Now they seem to think they can twist panic rules to stop people from taking photographs in public, no im not talking about train stations etc, reading your comments made me queasy and it wasnt the smelllly
Having not had the opportunity to read the transcript, I can only guess that Smellie’s acquittal was based on the inevitable failuire of the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he did not believe himself to be under threat from a mobile phone and bottle of orange juice which, in a fleeting moment, he believed to be deadly weapons. This is a subjective test. Smellie may be an entirely unsympathetic character, but he is entitled to rely on a defence that has protected many an innocent man and woman. I don’t believe a word of it, and I don’t suppose the jury did. But how could they be sure he was lying? If in doubt, acquit.
“Alec” sounds like a spokeman for either the Police Federation or the Freemaons, groups that share many members. I would remind him of what Sir Robert Mark (still alive at 90) said about the Metropolitan Police: “The test of a decent Police Force is that it catches more criminals than it employs. The Met fails that test.” Shocking words indeed.
@ Alec
he’s an interesting though curoius cove – he takes a dim antagonistic view of the police attacks on Ian Tomlinson (obviously based on vid shots he’s seen) but he castigates firmly those who take a very critical view of Smellie’s thuggery based on Smellie vid footage. The deployment of Smellie he criticises but its just a proceedural thing – TGG entrapment is just a procedural thing – oh my how reassuring. Smellie was worked up because he and his porkies had entrapped themselves too by their stupid deployment tactics and when they arrived and so deployed the crowd were vocal but not incredibly so and were also relatively peaceful too – it was the cop kettling op that entrapped the cops too that heightened tensions including their own – they were dimwits to do so and those present had every right to remonstrate about what was happening. Smellie (not Smillie) had no justification for hitting Nicola Fisher initially around the face she was simply remonstrating as she was quite entitled to do. Back in 1963 Sheffield police were using rhino whips big time on suspects in police cells – they were sacked for so doing and one was specfically castigated for beating a suspect because the suspect in question was protesting verbally and upset by being held and abused. I recommend blog contributors here to treat Alec’s nonsense as it deserves.
Notice how “Alec” seeks to smear Smellie’s victim as some kind of professional trouble-maker and parasite, in much the same way that the Police Federation/Freemasons tried to smear Jean-Charles De Menezes as a rapist.
Clearly, Alec knows little of the criminal law he is supposed to be enforcing. The apprehension of an assault has to be honest, not reasonable. It is the type and level of force used in response that must be reasonable and proportionate.
Oh, and Alec. Is £26,000 more or less than the average lifetime’s haul of bribes those Met officers retired by Sir Robert Mark took from criminals?
D RUNK ON POWER
My objection is to the correct pronunciation of this name just as I would if someone pronounced Dalziel as “dall-zeel”.
At that point, you can be safely ignored as a delusional paranoid loonie.
And so can you (even if you hadn’t tried to deny me ownership of my own name).
Dunno. It’s many times more than Valerie Manning was robbed for. Irrelevant? No more than your ‘response’.
Don’t you tu quoque me!
Are you suggesting Smellie was involved with that? Or that simply calling someone a professional agitator is akin to accusing them of rape?
You’re loosing it faster than Hamid “All Go Talibyebye” Karzai.
And I bet it confuses you, that someone can take differing views on separate events without first seeking approval from you or the Central Committee.
@Alec
ah a truly “smart Alec” reply …. I’ll let the blog readers be their own judge.
S-M-E-L-L-I-E yes siree on this occasion extremely so.
Only if you think On the Buses was funny.
I see Leah Borromeo confidentially told the reader that the activist community had nicked-named him “Tombstone Face”. Are you her*?
* This is a joke.
If being concerned about basic rights being taken away for whatever the hell they want to make up reason to jail us makes me a loonie aleK, i accept your wisdom.
All your rational “cough” dissembling of EVERYONES crazy rants of your trollish posts makes you out to be a real class act. I salute u sir 🙂
An yeah that was good sarcasm
My remarks here having nothing to do with: a) Jean Charles de Meneses; b) corruption whilst Robert Mack was Commissioner (and Smellie was still at school); c) the Freemasons; d) anything except this one case.
That’s the problem with “being concerned about basic rights”… they apply also to individuals like Smellie. I will restate my suspicion that if this were about Gitmo, and potentially highly dangerous men being denied the right to trial and due process, ‘solidarity’ with them would be a given.
No, what made you a loonie was the suggestion that right after being acquitted, but still with a disciplinary hearing hanging over him, Smellie would have started commenting at a minor blog under a false name.
What is the significance of that mis-spelling of my name?
@ Alec
re your latest contribution – correction – you DID NOT stick to one case – you introduced Ian Tomlinson as I pointed out to you and you did so soley it seems on vid footage – in his case you assesed footage very differently – compared to “ten seconds of grainy” vid (your description) in the SMELLIE case – whereas in the Tomlinson case you were quite happy to accept AND MAKE JUDGEMENTS in the SMELLIE case you were relatively much more dismissive re vid footage. Yawn.
For goodness sake, Ian, Fisher et al. were protesting the death of Tomlinson which had occurred in the backdrop of the g20 events.
Let’s look, once again, at the differences between the two:
i. Fisher was engaging with Smellie. Tomlinson was not with the TSG officer in question;
ii. Fisher was demonstrating confrontational behaviour. Tomlinson was not;
iii. Fisher had received warning from Smellie. The other TSG officer went more or less straight for the kill, so to speak;
iv. Fisher is not dead. Tomlinson is.
You failed to see Smellie used as a scapegoat for the death of Tomlinson. My commiserations. Never mind, he still faces misconduct hearings.
As I said, I bet it confuses you that I can hold differing views about separate events.
@ Alec
No need for certain of the closing remarks in your latest – anyway I am not confused by your outlook. I thought you may respond as you have re my today’s comment – believe me you were quite entitled to introduce Tomlinson into your original comments – A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E-L-Y – however that said if you do so you the content of what you further introduce will be scrutinised (as would have anyone else”s) for so doing. Period. I am pretty aware of what motivated the 2nd April protesters to turn out.
Yet, the thought occurs that if you concurred with me on that, questioning my mentioning is was bordering on sophistry.
My first reaction to Tomlinson’s death was based on seeing him on the ground but locative, and put it down to unforeseen effects of his health problems following a minor scuffle. Then, when I saw footage of his being pushed to the ground when the TSG officer failed to knock his legs from beneath him, I changed my opinion.
Yet, if all individual officers are to be held collectively responsible for the death of de Meneses – which is to be viewed as murder, as a given – as another poster suggested, then the protester tourists who converge on what inevitably become major public disorder incidents should also accept some reproach.
This isn’t Kennington Common.
I have been staying out of this rather nasty little argument, but seeing the undeserved and hysterical battering that Alec is receiving from some quarters, I thought I’d just say well done for attempting to stand up for reason and openmindedness in the face of much provocation. Strange that a site dedicated to liberal voices attracts people who can see everything from only one, clearly pre-selected, side.
@ Alec
You are now veering steeply off into cobblers land – I plainly questioned primarily your non acceptance indeed fairly vulgar cursory dismissal of the Smellie vid’s as “grainy” etc., against your non dismissal of vid’s showing Tomlinson’s police attackers. That is what it comes down to. I seem to recal that SMELLIE at trial acording to reports had hoped that Fisher would actually go down as per Tominson after his having beaten thrashed her VERY brutally with his “ASP” – circa 1963 it was police “rhino whips” and nowadays its “asps”. Brings out the animal in coppering. Wonder what police mentality so described their weaponry? Smellie got hyped up because he became piggy in the middle of a truly crass police entrapment deployment and that was a major factor that led to his further misguided brutal attacks on Nicola Fisher. He could have objected to being so deployed and have been prepared to face the consequences.
You’re one step away from citing Nuremberg. Smellie DID NOT ACT ILLEGALLY. How many more times does this have to be explained?
Still, had he refused to break the Law According to Ian Cameron, and faced “the consequences”, he would have been one up on that attention-seeking Joe Glenton.
~*lights blue touch-paper*~
~*retires*~
@ Malcolm Todd
Alec is getting a “battering” is he?… hmmm … I thought for my own part that it was exchanges of different outlooks. I s’pose you’ll regard this as a “battering” of your own good self you being a liberial hopeful – hope you’ll survive.
Hugs, Malcolm!
I’ve said elsewhere that my main beef with lower-case liberals is that, at best, they have little direction beyond wishing for the sugar and spice and all things nice whilst their opponents make do with the slugs and snails and puppy-dog tails; at worst, they’re neo-puritans. The LibDems, in particular, seem to attract the demi-vegetarians of the political world who assume the party is on the fence and not hailing from upper-case Liberalism.
The Any Questions broadcast following Tomlinson’s death, Eric Pickles (?) dared to express sympathy for the TSG officer in question, and immediately there was a simmering of hatred in the room and I swear I heard chairs being pushed back. Most, if not all of those Two Minutes Haters would have had no connexions at all to Tomlinson or anyone in similar situations.
I was left with the impression that they didn’t give a hoot about him as an individual, but were simply using him as a tool against the chimera of the Police which they had constructed.
Yes, battering, Ian (although I can live with it). Within minutes of my initial remark, I was being accused of supporting acts other than this and Police brutality in general. I have been denied ownership of my own name, and it has been suggested that I am part of the Police/Freemason/Bilderburg nexus; as well as, bizarrely, Smellie himself.
You yourself have managed both to offer me the munificence of your agreement and *still* questioned my motives for agreeing with you. Now you’re comparing deployment to a crowd-control situation with potential war-crime situations.
Tooth-picks, tooth-picks, I am being attacked by tooth-picks!
Re Malky :- I have no idea how you think I have it in for AleK, how could i ?, its not like I tried to antagonize or misrepresent his clouded thought bubbles. AleK on the other hand wrote a treatise on everyone that followed his flamer post by trying to attack, insult or demean other people’s posts.
I just found his post offensive, well all of them really but the first was just to stir up opposition and then to insult other folk was spiteful.
Its crass for you to try and pin his lesser troll posting on me.
I will revert back to childhood with my last remark, (just to make sure you and AleK understand)
He started it!!!
It would appear that some cases of Police brutality (e.g. ones for which there is supporting evidence result in conviction.