Two Metropolitan police officers have been found guilty of misconduct after a botched stop and search operation resulted in an innocent man being taken to hospital to receive treatment for his injuries.
PC Martin Binala was ruled to have been dishonest when he recorded in his police report that he smelled cannabis coming from inside Karo Grigoryan’s car. He was found guilty of gross misconduct and was dismissed. His colleague PC Stuart Dunne was found guilty of misconduct and given a written warning.
The police misconduct hearing found that both officers, who were in plain clothes and not wearing their body-worn cameras, did not follow the correct stop and search procedure when they arrested Grigoryan, a warehouse worker, who was sitting in his car, which was parked about 40 metres from his home.
The two officers were working with a violence suppression unit and were on patrol in an unmarked police vehicle on 12 September 2021 during an exercise aimed at targeting drug dealers. Footage from a camera worn by a third officer, Sergeant Cathcart, shows Grigoryan, who had no convictions, being pulled roughly from his car. He can be heard screaming and coughing as pepper spray is used, and shouting: “Help me, help me!”
The misconduct panel heard that if the officers had correctly completed intelligence checks on Grigoryan’s number plate they would have discovered there was no criminal activity linked to the vehicle. The panel concluded Binala’s claim that he smelled cannabis from the car was untrue. The car doors and windows were closed and nothing was later found to suggest that Grigoryan had been using cannabis.
Dunne and Binala should have taken better steps to explain to Grigoryan that they were police officers, the panel heard. Grigoryan, who speaks Polish and Armenian but whose English is not fluent, did not understand that he was being arrested and thought the casually dressed officers were attempting to rob him.
Asked why he initially resisted arrest, Grigoryan said: “I’m scared. I think you want to take my car.”
The officers were criticised for their delay in calling an ambulance for Grigoryan, and for leaving him in handcuffs for an excessive amount of time after discovering that there were no drugs in the car.
Grigoryan suffered injuries to his face and eardrum and bruising on his back and neck. He remains so traumatised by the incident that he is nervous of all interactions with the police, Alan Jenkins, lawyer for the Independent Office for Police Conduct, said.
“The purpose of misconduct proceedings is to protect the public and to maintain public confidence in the police,” Jenkins said. “How would the public regard this incident where a man who has done nothing wrong is so mistreated by police officers that he ends up being taken to hospital?”
Amanda Bostock, for PC Binala, said her client had made “a lapse in language” when he made the report claiming to have smelled cannabis from inside the car, and should have written that he “assumed the smell came from the vehicle”.
“It was a stop and search that went horribly wrong. It is very clear that he is not a dishonest person,” she said.
She said PC Binala had “an impeccable record” and was “greatly valued by his colleagues”. “The Metropolitan police do not have a great many young black officers with the degree of insight that PC Binala has. He is an asset to the Met police,” she said.
Sgt Cathcart is due to attend a separate misconduct interview in the coming weeks. The panel will publish full written reasons for its decisions within five days.
