West Midlands Police officers cleared of providing dishonest accounts over arrest

31 Oct 2018 12:54 PM

Two West Midlands Police constables accused of providing dishonest accounts about the arrest of a man at Walsall were cleared of gross misconduct by a disciplinary panel.

We carried out two investigations which looked into a complaint that excessive force had been used during the arrest and allegations that false statements about the incident had been given by PC Neil Tong and PC Craig Elliot. 

The force agreed with our conclusions that both officers had a case to answer for grossmisconduct over their accounts and organised a two-day hearing last week before an independent disciplinary panel.

The panel took the view that while CCTV footage did not support their written accounts it was accepted that they believed their statements were true at the time they were given and were therefore not acting dishonestly.

Neither officer was found by the panel to have breached professional standards over their accounts.