A police sergeant who kicked a 'vulnerable' 13 year old girl like a football has avoided jail after he told a court he was using a 'Home Office-approved distraction technique'. Police Sergeant Ian Cheesman shocked other officers as he was captured on CCTV footage kicking the child inside a police cell.
He claimed this was a professional technique taught to police officers and wasn't an angry retaliation to being kicked by the girl just seconds before. The 53 year old made the girl cry out in pain before asking 'How do you like being kicked?'
During a trial at Portsmouth Magistrates Court in Hampshire, Sgt Cheesman denied one charge of common assault and claimed he used appropriate force with a 'distraction strike'. But this was dismissed by the judge, who ruled he had retaliated after being provoked by the teenager.
Lucy Paddick, prosecuting, told the court Sgt Cheesman was the principal custody sergeant at Chichester custody centre, West Sussex, for a 12 hour night shift on April 5-6 last year. Mrs Paddick said: "There was a 13 year old female detainee due to be released, she was agitated and anxious and didn't want to be released."
The court heard the teenager was being processed for release just after midnight when a custody assistant shouted for help after the girl kicked him and 'smacked' her appropriate adult who had come to collect her.
Addressing the court, Sgt Cheesman said he rushed to help, leaving his personal protective equipment behind, to calm her down by using a 'stern parent voice'. The father of three was heard saying: "How would you like it if someone kicked you?"
Describing how he escorted the girl back to her cell with his colleague Sgt Daniel Burt, he said: "We were trying to talk to her but she was responding with verbal abuse.
"I noticed she kicked out her left leg at Sergeant Burt, not with any significant force, but it did make contact. She then kicked out with her right leg at me. She literally kicked me right on my left shin, causing quite a lot of pain.
"The level of aggression, we have gone from passive resistance, verbal resistance and now we have gone to active resistance, she has assaulted me. At this point I'm thinking, I have got no personal protective equipment with me, I didn't have time to grab it so I had no options apart from using some form of physical restraint or technique.
"I was concerned that Sergeant Burt was crouched near her, she has already kicked out, she could kick him in the face potentially. I considered going down and grabbing her legs but again she could kick me in the face.
"I made the decision to use what we call a distraction technique, usually a blow or strike, a kick or a punch... the idea of which is to distract somebody to cause brief muscle dysfunction in the location.
"The areas we are trained to target are pressure points, so it will send a nerve message to the brain which basically distracts them briefly to allow you as a police officer some very brief time to restrain them or disengage.
"I had to do something to protect myself and my colleague. She had assaulted me, she had assaulted two other people I knew about, I needed to use that force to give us that brief window to restrain her."
Mrs Paddick, cross examining Sgt Cheesman, said: "It was not a distraction technique. You're fed up with her behaviour, you try to assert your authority but it's not getting anywhere, so in frustration and retaliation at being kicked you kick her."
He replied: "It's a recognised Home Office-approved technique."
Sgt Burt said the incident was 'shocking' and added: "The kick Sergeant Cheesman did was, if I could describe in football terminology, a toe punt. He then said to her something along the lines of 'How do you like being kicked?'"
District Judge David Robinson said: "The officers were having to deal with a very difficult situation. But no matter how the female detainee had behaved... this was, and remained, a 13 year old girl sat almost on the floor before two standing police officers.
"I'm sure that in these circumstances what was described as a distraction strike was not reasonable... At least a significant element of that kick was a retaliation.
"This was a vulnerable female detainee... As a custody sergeant you were in a position of responsibility and power. Your job was to deal with very difficult people in very difficult situations while ensuring the welfare of everybody and you breached that duty.
"You faced a significant degree of provocation, you were kicked and hurt a split second before and this was an instant reaction. This was a blemish on what was otherwise nearly 30 years of public service."
Sgt Cheesman was handed a one year community order with a requirement of 50 hours unpaid work. He was also ordered to pay £625 costs and a £95 victim surcharge.
Sgt Cheesman, of Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex, worked for Sussex Police for 29 years before retiring in January this year.
