Five Metropolitan Police officers are on trial over a fight with Romanians after a boozy Christmas party on a boat on the Thames.
Kellsey Millar, 32, Jack Sparkes, 34, Max Michaels-Dubois, 33, Daniel Dean, 38, and Alex Fackerell, 31, are all accused over the incident near the Southbank on December 1 2023.
The officers, all attached to the Met’s Territorial Support Group, had been drinking heavily before they boarded a river boat for their Christmas party, a court heard.
Later in the evening, after they had docked and continued the party on land, Fackerell reportedly got into a fight with a group of Romanian men and had his “head busted open” after being hit with a bottle, kicked and stamped on, The Times reports.
Inner London Crown Court heard the officer was being treated for his injuries at Las Iguanas restaurant when a different group of Romanians walked past and asked if he was OK.
The incident happened on the date of a Romanian national holiday, when there were groups in central London including some draped in the country’s flag.
Fackerell’s colleagues are accused of being “aggressive” to the second group of Romanians, before a fight lasting more than three minutes broke out.
It is said Millar was blocked from entering the restaurant and allegedly grabbed Jheanelle Samuels, a female security guard, and “kneed her in her left thigh”. Ms Samuels punched the officer in the eye in self-defence to “get her grip off me” in accordance with her training, she said.
Millar, Sparkes, Michaels-Dubois, Dean and Fackerell deny affray. Millar has pleaded not guilty to a separate charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
The Times reported that Samuels told jurors she overheard Fackerell saying: “I started on one of them and I didn’t know there were more and they jumped in.”
She said she saw three Romanians — two men and a woman — walk past and asked Fackerell if he was OK, and she witnessed an “aggressive reaction”, with the group being asked: “Were you the ones who did it?”.
“I saw the Romanians were outnumbered”, she said.
“I thought it was unfair for them to be beaten up so I tried to defuse the situation.”
Michaels-Dubois is accused of shoving Samuels, and she told the court she was “in serious pain” after the melee.
The Territorial Support Group is a unit within the Met which deals with public order policing and providing support for operations.
The trial continues.
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