Croydon (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Jocelyn Agyemang from Croydon told a misconduct hearing she was “very distressed” and “scared” after being wrongly arrested for alleged bus fare evasion.
In July 2023, Jocelyn Agyemang was detained by a police officer after she and her kid got off a bus in Croydon and she refused to show her ticket when requested to. After mistakenly detaining Ms. Agyemang, PC Perry Lathwood was fined £1,500 for assault; however, his conviction was overturned in September of last year.
The claim that he used force on Ms. Agyemang, whom he handcuffed and held by the arm, and that there was no legal justification for the use of force might be considered gross misconduct, has led to him being subject to misconduct procedures.
Giving evidence to the central London hearing on Monday, Ms Agyemang said:
“I was very distressed (and) upset because of how I had been treated.”
Asked by Kevin Baumber, the barrister representing Mr Lathwood, if she noticed the inspectors waiting as her bus pulled into the Whitehorse Road stop, Ms Agyemang said that she “only saw them when I was basically off the bus”.
“I didn’t notice, I guess my mind was elsewhere,”
she said, giving evidence from behind a screen.
When Ms. Agyemang got off the bus, she allegedly reached into her jacket to retrieve her oyster card, notwithstanding Mr. Baumber’s argument that she did not comply with a request to present her ticket. Ms. Agyemang had told the tribunal that “she did not want to stop, asking them to ‘walk with me, walk with me,'” according to Cecily White, the lawyer for the Metropolitan Police.
The hearing was informed that Ms. Agyemang had to drop her child off at her mother’s house before her appointment. On the morning of July 21, 2023, she got off the 147 bus, which was accompanied by three police officers, two police community support officers (PCSOs), and eight TfL revenue protection inspectors (RPIs).
After Ms. Agyemang passed an RPI, Mr. Lathwood allegedly approached her, grabbed her arm, and proceeded to use force against her by gripping her wrist and arm, according to testimony given at the court, before handcuffing her. According to Scotland Yard, the officer may lose their job if the alleged violation of professional conduct is shown to be true.
In addition, the tribunal heard allegations that Mr. Lathwood called Ms. Agyemang a “daft cow” and “love” when he apprehended her. “Dismissive and condescending” is how Ms. White described the alleged rhetoric, especially when it comes to women.
In the bodyworn video that was shown during the hearing, Ms. Agyemang tells Mr. Lathwood, “I haven’t done anything,” “get off me,” and “can you get off my arm,” before yelling, “Can you get off me? I am being harmed by this man. “Stop resisting” and “there’s a road behind you, you daft cow, stay here” are the words that Mr. Lathwood appears to yell at her in the video.
When Ms. Agyemang “kept moving back towards the road, I didn’t want to call an ambulance,” Mr. Lathwood told the hearing on Monday afternoon that he had dubbed her a “daft cow.” “Not in my language, no” is what Mr. Lathwood answered when asked if the word “love” is a pejorative.
He said he held Ms Agyemang because she was “clearly trying to get away” and had “walked straight into” him before trying to walk past him. The commotion while Ms Agyemang was arrested continued for at least four minutes, with Mr Lathwood holding on to her arm, as other staff spoke to her and passers-by to ask what was happening, and one RPI says:
“Can we try and scan her card please?”
Another officer took her Oyster card and went away with it to see if she had paid, and Ms Agyemang was de-arrested at the scene after it was confirmed she had paid her fare. A video of the incident shared on social media went viral, the tribunal heard.
Ms Agyemang denied that force was used on her in response to her “physical resistance” to Mr Lathwood.
“I don’t feel like I was resisting,”
she told the hearing. Mr Lathwood later demonstrated how he first laid his hands on Ms Agyemang to the panel, and said there was “no pushing, no pulling”.
Ms White told the hearing Mr Lathwood was “obviously angry and frustrated” in the footage, and said it was “obviously disproportionate and unnecessary to apply that use of force and to handcuff her”.
“What that did was massively inflame the situation,”
she told the hearing.
“Whilst it is accepted that Miss A (Ms Agyemang) is confrontational to the officer, in the main that is in response to his laying hands on her, and not the other way round.”
Once she was released, Ms Agyemang is heard in the footage saying “that’s why you lot will never f****** prosper. She denied that her statement was “anti-police” and told the tribunal:
“It’s clearly me very upset. If you do wrong to people, how can you prosper?”
The mother described the incident as “scary”, and became tearful as she added:
“The officer was very, very aggressive, he was just not nice and I don’t know what I had done wrong. The lack of control, I can’t explain it, he was very controlling, very dismissive. He was very cocky, he didn’t care about what he’d done. He just made me feel very bad.”
According to the hearing, Ms. Agyemang went to A&E following the incident and was prescribed anti-inflammatory medications for the bruises on her arm. Two days later, on the evening of July 23, she reported that the bruises were still there. The tribunal goes on.
How has the Met changed fare-evasion procedures since the incident?
The Metropolitan Police have ceased to support the operational enforcement of fare evasion on buses, focusing their attention on dealing with violent crime on the bus network.
Officers originally involved in fare evasion checks are now under stricter guidelines and training to prevent wrongful arrests and treat passengers with respect.
Greater emphasis is placed on confirming fare payment, and officers are advised to exercise greater caution in identifying suspected non-fare payers.
Bag and person searches are subject to more explicit protocol to eliminate unnecessary distress and allegations of misconduct. This will not remove the risk entirely, however, as using reasonable force may still be viewed as abuse of position.
