Police pay £24k for wrongful arrest

A man has won £24,000 from Essex Police after being left destiture when he was wrongly arrested
24 January 2014

A man who was left destitute after being wrongly arrested and banned from returning home has received a payout of £24,000 from police.

Ryan Fleming, 33, became embroiled in a neighbour dispute with an Essex Police officer in 2009, and in August that year was arrested for an alleged public order offence and harassment.

He was held for more than 18 hours and charged with both crimes, before being released on bail on the condition that he did not return home, his solicitor said.

Mr Fleming was ultimately acquitted but was left homeless after falling behind with his rent, and t he officer has been disciplined internally over the affair.

The animal charity volunteer said: "This police officer should have been fired from the force. The public cannot be expected to have confidence in Essex Police if this is how they deal with such serious misconduct."

Essex Police confirmed that they had reached an out-of-court settlement, without admitting liability.

Deputy Chief Constable Derek Benson said: "Where the standards and behaviour of our officers fall short of what is expected, Essex Police will take action. In June 2011 an officer did receive management action.

"We will continue to work hard to ensure we maintain the confidence of our local communities. On this occasion, I can confirm that, while we have made no admissions on liability, we have reached an out-of-court settlement with Ryan Fleming following his arrest and detention in August 2009."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in