PC OLiver Banfield, a 25 year old PC with the West Midlands constabulary, was convicted of ‘assault by beating’ in January.
The attack occurred in July 2020 when Banfield grabbed his 37-year old victm by the throat and tried to drag her to the floor.
In her victim impact statement the woman he attacked said it took police over 30 hours to take a statement over the phone, nine days before they came to see her, and eight weeks before an officer carried out house-to-house enquiriers. A West Midlands police statement was issued apologising that its ‘initial response to the report of the assasult was not as swift as it should have been’.
Banfield was told by the court he would have to pay £680 (£500 compensation to his victim, £95 victim surcgharge and £85 court costs). He was also required to stay home between the hours of 7pm and 7am for 14 weeks.
“To be verbally abused with misogynistic slang, grabbed by the neck, and forced to the floor on a dark road by a drunk man a foot taller than me is terrifying, but to then find that he was a police officer shook my belief system to its core.”
As for the rest of us it serves as a reminder – the belief system propagated by the media that cops are the righteous guardians of the public, with a ‘few bad apples’ is a myth. A police officer is no more virtuous than the average citizen. And often they are less so. The priveleged position in which they find themselves during most court proceedings, particlarly magistrates’ courts (when in doubt, the defendant is lying and the police officer is telling the truth) leads to countless miscarriages of justice.
There is a reason why magistrates’ courts are often referred to as ‘police courts’.