The Metropolitan Police have been ordered by a judge to pay over £400,000, to an innocent black businessman, who they constantly stopped in his car and on one occasion tackled and tased.
“The pain was nothing like I have ever had before. It was like all your nerves and nerve endings have electricity going through,” 52 year-old grandfather Daniel Sylvester said, on the unprovoked incident. “It’s like you’re going to explode, all through your body, from the head to the toes.”
Sylvester was stopped 3 times by police after he purchased a used car which once belonged to a top drug dealer. However when the vehicle was searched nothing was found.
The business man, who runs a security company, decided to sue the police department for assault and false imprisonment. The jury, who agreed that the police’s use of force was unreasonable, awarded him £8,200 in damages following a two week trial.
They were also ordered to pay for Sylvester’s legal fees which amounted to £250,000 and their own legal fees which were around £150,000.
“The deprivation of his liberty may only have lasted for a few minutes but it was strenuously denied by the police,” Judge Simon Freeland, who handed out the hefty fine, said. “Mr Sylvester has established that he was assaulted. In my judgment, he has established it in a very significant way.”
Justice was served.
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