A woman who was wrongly arrested for bus fare evasion and was held on the arm by a police officer has told a misconduct hearing she was “very distressed” and “upset by how I was treated”, describing the incident as “scary”.
Jocelyn Agyemang was held by a police officer after she got off a bus in Croydon, south London, with her son, and did not immediately provide her ticket when she was asked to in July 2023.
Pc Perry Lathwood was fined £1,500 for assault after wrongly arresting Ms Agyemang but had his conviction quashed last September.
He is now facing misconduct proceedings over the allegation that he used force against Ms Agyemang, whom he held by her arm and handcuffed, and that there was no lawful basis for the use of force, which could amount to gross misconduct.
Giving evidence to the central London hearing on Monday, Ms Agyemang said: “I was very distressed (and) upset because of how I had been treated.”
Asked by Kevin Baumber, the barrister representing Mr Lathwood, if she noticed the inspectors waiting as her bus pulled into the Whitehorse Road stop, Ms Agyemang said that she “only saw them when I was basically off the bus”.
“I didn’t notice, I guess my mind was elsewhere,” she said, giving evidence from behind a screen.
Mr Baumber argued that Ms Agyemang did not comply with a request to show her ticket as she got off the bus, but she claimed she had been reaching into her jacket to get her Oyster card out.
Cecily White, the barrister representing the Metropolitan Police, told the tribunal Ms Agyemang had indicated “she did not want to stop, asking them to ‘walk with me, walk with me’”.
Ms Agyemang had an appointment to get to and needed to drop her child off at her mother’s house before it, the hearing was told.
She disembarked from the 147 bus on the morning of July 21 2023, where there were eight TfL revenue protection inspectors (RPIs), two police community support officers (PCSOs) and three police officers, including Mr Lathwood, waiting to check tickets.
It is alleged Mr Lathwood walked towards Ms Agyemang after she walked past an RPI, took hold of her arm and continued to use force against her by holding on to her arm and wrist, the hearing was told, before handcuffing her.
Scotland Yard said the alleged breach of professional behaviour is so serious that if it is proved, the officer could be sacked.
It is also alleged that Mr Lathwood used inappropriate language when he arrested Ms Agyemang, calling her “love” and a “daft cow”, the tribunal heard on Monday.
Ms White said the alleged language is “dismissive and condescending”, particularly towards women.
In bodyworn footage shown to the hearing, Ms Agyemang tells Mr Lathwood, “can you get off my arm”, “I haven’t done anything” and “get off me”, before she begins shouting: “Can you get off me? This man is hurting me.”
In the footage, Mr Lathwood appears to shout at her to “stop resisting” and shortly afterwards says “there’s a road behind you you daft cow, stay here”.
Mr Lathwood told the hearing on Monday afternoon he called Ms Agyemang a “daft cow” because she “kept moving back towards the road, I didn’t want to call an ambulance”.
Asked if “love” is a derogatory term, Mr Lathwood said: “Not in my language, no”.
He said he held Ms Agyemang because she was “clearly trying to get away” and had “walked straight into” him before trying to walk past him.
The commotion while Ms Agyemang was arrested continued for at least four minutes, with Mr Lathwood holding on to her arm, as other staff speak to her and passers-by ask what is happening, and one RPI says: “Can we try and scan her card please?”
Another officer took her Oyster card and went away with it to see if she had paid, and Ms Agyemang was de-arrested at the scene after it was confirmed she had paid her fare.
A video of the incident shared on social media went viral, the tribunal heard.
Ms Agyemang denied that force was used on her in response to her “physical resistance” to Mr Lathwood.
“I don’t feel like I was resisting,” she told the hearing.
Mr Lathwood later demonstrated how he first laid his hands on Ms Agyemang to the panel, and said there was “no pushing, no pulling”.
Ms White told the hearing Mr Lathwood was “obviously angry and frustrated” in the footage, and said it was “obviously disproportionate and unnecessary to apply that use of force and to handcuff her”.
“What that did was massively inflame the situation,” she told the hearing.
“Whilst it is accepted that Miss A (Ms Agyemang) is confrontational to the officer, in the main that is in response to his laying hands on her, and not the other way round.”
Once she was released, Ms Agyemang is heard in the footage saying “that’s why you lot will never f****** prosper.
She denied that her statement was “anti-police” and told the tribunal: “It’s clearly me very upset. If you do wrong to people, how can you prosper?”
The mother described the incident as “scary”, and became tearful as she added: “The officer was very, very aggressive, he was just not nice and I don’t know what I had done wrong.
“The lack of control, I can’t explain it, he was very controlling, very dismissive.
“He was very cocky, he didn’t care about what he’d done. He just made me feel very bad.”
Ms Agyemang went to A&E after the incident and was given anti-inflammatories for bruising to her arm, and said she still had bruising on her arm by the evening of July 23, two days later, the hearing was told.
The tribunal continues.
