The full bodyworn video of a controversial fare evasion arrest could be shown by the Met to members of the public, a senior officer said on Tuesday as he expressed regret at the distress the incident had caused to a young child.
Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said that the force was examining whether it was possible to show the footage as part of an effort to address the “really toxic” social media storm that has erupted since a video of the arrest was posted online.
“If we can, we will”, he said over showing the bodyworn video, adding that he believed that the officers involved had done nothing wrong and had instead been correctly been performing their duty in supporting Transport for Londonstaff in a fare evasion operation.
The incident at the centre of the controversy involved the arrest of a woman on Whitehorse Lane in Croydon at the weekend after she refused to show a TfL inspector evidence that she had paid her fare.
Footage widely shared on social media shows her after getting off the bus angrily complaining before officers handcuff her while her young son, who is being talked to calmly by an officer, watches looking distressed. A man who says he is the woman’s brother is heard delivering a succession of expletives as he protests about her arrest.
The woman was later found to have paid her fare and de-arrested and the Met has referred the incident to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
Assistant Commissioner Twist said on Tuesday, however, that the force still believed that its officers had acted correctly and that the referral to the watchdog was intended to provide independent reassurance to those among the public who had been disturbed by the incident.
“The lady concerned was asked for a ticket by the ticket inspector, she then spoke to a PCSO and agina didn’t produce a ticket and ended up speaking to officers,” he told LBC.
“What’s clear is – we are an empathetic organisation, one of our new values is empathy - nobody that sees a young child being unhappy in that way would be happy about that or think that we don’t regret that that happened. Of course we do, nobody wants to see a young child upset in that way.
“This is why officers are in such a difficult position. If the ticket inspector is saying this person is not showing a ticket you’ve got to start engaging with that person. Nobody wants a child to be upset, but officers have got to do their duty. That doesn’t mean that we can’t be mindful and alert. We are worried about what the communities of London think and rightly so.”
Asked if the police bodyworn video of the incident could be released, Mr Twist said that although there “things around data protection and identification of people that need to be considered” the Met was “looking into it” and would be willing to show it to some members of the local community.
“I don’t think we have anything to hide here and if we can, we will,” he added. “This just shows the difficulty of the situation, where we have got polarised views, particularly on social media, taking a view as to what happened.
“Nobody wants people to be upset, but equally officers have got a job to do and the reason we referred it was because we are worried about public confidence.
“One of the main things we are trying to do is build more trust here and it’s clear that this incident has led to a section of the community questioning their trust or damaging that trust. Even though I don’t think the officers have done something but I don’t think it’s a bad thing to ask the Independent Office for Police Conduct to look at it to see if there was anything we didn’t do right.”
Tuesday’s comments by Mr Twist came as he also repeated earlier warnings about the impact of the Just Stop Oil protests in London, saying that they had resulted in more than 150 officers a day being diverted from other duties.
He said a “staggering” total of 23,500 officer shifts had been used to police the 13 weeks of protests by the environmental campaigners and that further time would be lost over the coming months as officers dealt with preparing for taking those charged to court.
He said this would continue until 2025 and that the total number of arrests since the protests began was now more than 1,000.
