A West Midlands Police officer has been jailed for 12 weeks after magistrates found him guilty of assault following an incident where the officer pushed a male who then fell over and cut his leg.
PC Neville Bridgewood, 39, was found guilty of assault following a two-day trial at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on 1st November.
The officer was one of several officers who responded to a panic alarm on a bus outside Bilston bus station on 26th September last year.
A man had failed to pay the fare, which led to the panic button aboard the bus being activated by the driver.
Without knowing why the panic button had been activated, officers rushed to the scene and during an altercation with the suspect, PC Bridgewood pushed the man, who then fell over and sustained a cut to his leg.
The cut did not require any hospital treatment.
A spokesperson for WMP said that the officer has been on non-front-line duties since charges were brought against him and has now been suspended.
A misconduct hearing will be conducted in due course.
The spokesperson added:
‘We expect the highest standards of conduct from our officers and will bring to justice those who fall below that standard, including bringing criminal charges.’
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So the fella failed pay his fare and kicked off.
So he got what was coming. In any other country except canada maybe the officer wouldn’t even get a complaint.
Ridiculous.
When I was growing up if a police officer told you yo do something you bloody well did it.
So, what I seeing from the limited info here Is that the Officer used minimal force against a belligerent offender and the courts decided that Police can no longer defend themselves… and sent a very clear message to everyone it is now open season to abuse Police because as soon as they defend themselves in ANY way they become criminals,
I wonder who this magistrate will depend on for his safety when some junkie decides its OK to attack him, eventually the Police Officers will actually notice they are in a no win situation and just give up trying…. and I for one, couldn’t blame them…
Fact is madder than fiction. 12 weeks prison for a cut leg? Seriously? And what about the man not paying his fare? Nobody cares about that. Bear in mind the panic button had been pushed. This man was clearly being troublesome, causing disruption and delaying the bus service. Never mind. His leg suffers a minor cut and the copper gets banged up.
Unless society gets a lot tougher on our criminal classes, life will become more and more intolerable for the law abiding who will eventually turn to vigilantism and who can blame them? This will herald the breakdown of our increasingly fragile society and the end of western civilisation. We have a few decades left before it all irrevocably falls apart but the time left to turn things around is becoming scarily short.
So a copper doing his job dealing with some snotty individual who no doubt had plenty of mouth,gets sent to prison for not putting up with his crap. The whole justice system is completely out of touch and the continual failure to support our police is a disgrace.
The world has gone mad. Who is employing these judges. And the American woman got 12 months suspended for killing someone. Nuts.
I’m not fussed about the American woman she has admitted and it was an accident. Besides she would never be extradited here. But the above decision is a joke should’ve got dealt by words or advice.
I am sooo sickened by the news that a police officer doing his duty gets jailed for shoving a punk and yet another male gets off without a whisper for assaulting a police officer doing his duty – this country is full of arses and I am very glad I am no longer in the working fraternity because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut long enough !!!!!
I just hope that this ridiculous conviction and sentence was appealed and the officer didn’t do any time. God Bless all serving officers it’s not like it was in my time.