10/05/2012

Met Officer To Face Assault Charge

A police officer is to face prosecution over allegations he assaulted a 15-year-old black teenager who was handcuffed in the custody area of a London police station shortly after last summer's riots.

Joe Harrington, a Metropolitan police constable, faces charges of "occasioning actual bodily harm" after he allegedly attacked Terelle Ferguson, now 16, at Forest Gate police station.

The decision to charge the officer was announced by the Crown Prosecution Service, which had previously decided there was no realistic prospect of prosecution in the case. Alison Saunders, the chief crown prosecutor for London, said it was regrettable that prosecutors previously came to the wrong conclusion in the case.

"I hope the seriousness with which the CPS has taken this matter gives the public confidence that we are an organisation which will review our decisions, openly accept when we've got them wrong and then take the correct course of action," she said.

The decision to prosecute Harrington is the second time in a month the CPS has reversed a decision not to prosecute a police officer.

(H)


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