Met Police Lose ZH Appeal

Some good news. Readers, consider this campaign now put to archives. The case has had a happy ending of a sort.

Appeal judges have rejected a bid to overturn a damages award made to an autistic teenager restrained by police after jumping into a swimming pool.

Last year a judge said Metropolitan Police officers had falsely imprisoned and discriminated against the boy, and awarded him £28,250.

He was placed in handcuffs and leg restraints and put in a police van.

The Met appealed last month saying the ruling could affect operational effectiveness.

The Court of Appeal had been told it would lead to officers being advised to be “wary and defensive” when attending emergencies involving people with a disability or mental illness.

‘Upset child’

The case arose in 2008 after the boy, known in court as ZH, jumped full-clothed into Acton Baths, west London.

He was lifted out and put in handcuffs and leg restraints and held in the back of a police van before being handed over to carers.

He has severe autism and epilepsy and can react adversely if touched or approached by someone he does not know.

ZH won a High Court claim for trespass to the person, assault and battery and false imprisonment under the Disability Discrimination Act and the Human Rights Act, last March.

‘Wholly inappropriate’

He sued through his father, GH, who told the High Court his son had changed since the incident from a “loveable little kid into an upset child” who did not want to bathe, shower or go into water.

Sir Robert Nelson, sitting in London, awarded damages and said although the officers were genuinely doing what they thought best, matters escalated to the point where there was a “wholly inappropriate” restraint of ZH.

Anne Studd QC, representing the police, told the appeal court Sir Robert had failed to understand “the bigger policing picture” and had come to a “flawed and unworkable conclusion”.

The judge had failed to build in any operational discretion when officers genuinely believed they were in an emergency situation that required them to act at once, she argued.

ZH’s father said: “The thousands of pounds of public money being spent by the commissioner defending the indefensible would be much better spent ensuring his officers treat people with disabilities humanely.”