A British Transport Police officer who grabbed a 15-year-old girl’s neck when he accosted her for fare dodging has been found guilty of assault.
PC Adrian Young, 48, used unlawful force in the incident at Camden Road station last September as he returned to work from his lunch break.
The girl and her friend were spotted pushing their way through the barriers after a station worker refused to let them through for free.
CCTV caught the moment Young put the girl in a headlock and grabbed her by the neck in a struggle in the ticket hall. He went on to drag her back through the barrier and then restrained her against a wall, again grabbing hold of her neck.
At Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, District Judge Nina Tempia found Young guilty of assault by beating and adjourned his case for sentencing next month.
The court heard the girl had complained of struggling to breathe as she accused Young of using as “stranglehold” on her.
The judge found several “inconsistencies” in Young’s account of the incident, and said the CCTV is “clear” and “compelling”.
“The defendant had his hand around the complainant’s neck in front of the barrier, and thereafter when they went through the barrier”, she said.
“He had his hand around her neck when she was up against the wall.”
Young looked emotional in the dock and shook his head as the guilty verdict was delivered. The judge ordered a probation report, which will consider if a prison term is the appropriate sentence.
During the trial on Wednesday, Young - a 19-year veteran of the British Transport Police - called the girl and her friend “hysterical” and insisted he had only grabbed hold of the fare dodger’s clothing to stop her escaping. He denied ever intentionally touching her neck.
Prosecutor Mark Gadsden told the court Young entered the station on September 22 last year just as the girl and her friend, also 15, were pushing through the ticket barriers.
“He swung her around and got hold of her in a headlock with his arm around her neck”, he said.
“She was a 15-year-old child, and we say that degree of force was unnecessary, not reasonable in the circumstances, and not proportionate.”
Playing footage of events as they were captured on the station’s CCTV cameras, Mr Gadsden said: “The complainant in this case, together with a friend, came to Camden railway station, they wished to go through the barrier without a ticket, and asked a member of staff to allow them.
“He refused, the friend pushed through the barrier, and the complainant was in the process of pushing her way through the barrier when the defendant, a British Transport Police officer, walked in.
“He grabbed hold of her, initially around the torso, imprisoning her arms.”
The prosecutor said the girl was initially swung around while her friend remonstrated with Young to let go.
“He continues to restrain her with his arm around the neck”, he said.
“They go through the barrier, back from the unpaid to the paid part where you need to have a ticket, one of the staff members having opened the barrier to facilitate that.
“He (Young) is holding the complainant up against the wall with his left hand around her neck, and that’s a continuation of the assault.”
The teenage girl alleged to be the assault victim was due to give evidence, but this morning told prosecutors she would not be attending court.
Nonetheless, Mr Gadsden said the case would continue, largely based on CCTV evidence and images of the incident as it unfolded.
“This is a trained police officer”, he told the judge.
“It is not a member of the public attempting a citizen’s arrest on someone who is an unknown quantity.
“He is a training officer who knows the proper way to restrain people, and ways you should not restrain people such as in a headlock.
Young, who is part of BTP’s London Overground Tasking Team, told Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigators that he denies using any force beyond what was “lawful, reasonable, and proportionate”.
In evidence, Young said he was working that day, though he was not in full uniform as he was mainly concentrating on completing paperwork.
He was in police issue trousers and other civilian clothes when he entered the station to return from getting lunch, and had his warrant card out already when he spotted the teenage fare dodger.
“I could hear the audible chirp the TfL gates make when they are being pushed through”, he said. “It triggers a quiet but noticeable alarm I’m familiar with.”
Young said he saw the girl “actively pushing through the gates”, and believed it was his “duty” to intervene.
“If we were able to have a calm conversation with her, which was my intention, I would have invited her to engage with railway staff so they could use their procedures to deal with ticketless travel. Usually this takes the form of some kind of penalty fare.
“I asked her to stop in my initial approach to her...and she didn’t stop. It was abundantly clear to me she recognised and heard I told her I was a police officer, she had seen the warrant card, and she actively tried to evade me by going round to my left.”
Young said he “extended my arm out in order to stop her going around me”, and told the court he grabbed hold of part of the girl’s upper clothing, just below her shoulder.
“It was a flurry of activity, the very second I clamped on to her clothing she started to attack that hand in order to remove my grasp.”
Young told the court he himself was assaulted by the girl, and believed at the time she had dug her nails into his hand.
He said his hand may have risen up her body as she struggled, but he insisted it was brief and unintentional, and he accused the girl of making the first physical contact by moving her torso into his outstretched arm.
“Throughout this, both (girls) are screaming at me, shouting ‘get off’, choice words, four letter words, screaming almost hysterically”, he said.
Young argued that he felt a “hostile” presence growing around him, and when he had taken the “highly-strung” girl back through the barriers and into corner he said the “hysterical” screaming and struggling continued.
“At no point did I hold her by the throat, or do anything that could reasonably be described as strangulation or throttling”, he said.
When he was first interviewed over the incident, Young claimed the girl had tried to knee him in the groin while she was being detained.
“Clearly she was absolutely determined to get away, and I wasn’t able to let go”, he said.
He denied ever putting the girl in a headlock, and under cross-examination he insisted he had eventually removed his grip on the teen because she was being more compliant, rather than as a reaction to being filmed by others in the station.
Young went on to arrest the girl for fare evasion and assaulting a police officer, but later de-arrested her and said she had apologised, blaming her reaction on “panic” that her parents would have to be called.
Mr Gadsden questioned: “You let her go because you realised you had assaulted her.”
Young responded: “I would argue there is no footage that actively shows what you say.”
One of Young’s BTP colleagues was at her desk at Camden Road station when she got an urgent call to assist in the ticket hall, and arrived to find Young grappling with the girl and calling out for handcuffs.
She said it was “really difficult” to get the handcuffs on to the girl, who was “kicking and flailing” while her friends were shouting and videoing the scene.
“The crowd felt very hostile”, she said. “I feared we were going to get our heads kicked in.”
IOPC Director Emily Barry said: “All police officers are trained to use force that is necessary, proportionate and reasonable in the circumstances. On this occasion, there was no lawful reason for the force used by PC Young, which could have resulted in serious injuries, particularly as he was dealing with a child who was considerably smaller than him.
“The incident was witnessed by several members of the public who expressed concerns at the scene about the officer’s actions, with one of the witnesses making a complaint to BTP that ultimately led to us carrying out an independent investigation.
“This shows that the public can have confidence in the police complaints system and that the IOPC will hold officers to account for their actions, with PC Young now convicted of a criminal offence.”
Young, who lives in Spalding, Lincolnshire, denied assault. He will be sentenced on November 13.
