The Bear Minimum

When police are in the ’sites’ it’s nice to know that justice still won’t waver.

It’s an interesting case, and one that I’m quite pleased to see play out like this. In 2008, Pc Jason Hanvey was investigating an assault which Amy Keigher, who was 19 years of age at the time, was the lead suspect. During an interrogation with Keigher, Hanvey became overly aggressive to the point of bullying her. He was shown in CCTV footage to have pushed her head onto the table and held it there, told her he would “rip her scull off”, held her hair, and cuffed her only to then hold her arms up over her head for over a minute, whilst telling her to say “pretty please” to have her arms let down.

This was all witnessed by Sgt Andrew Kennedy, who was the other officer charged, and whom the judge in the case, Judge Anthony Gee QC, was also quite scathing of. He called them bullies, and stated that Kennedy’s culpability was no less than that of Hanvey’s in spite of his not physically being the aggressor in this case. Both officers haven’t had spotless careers before this, with Hanvey being convicted of punching a suspect in the face during an interrogation 12 years ago, and Kennedy facing disciplinary hearings in both 1999 and 2000 for neglect of duty.

The lass who was assaulted by Hanvey was tried and convicted of the assault for which she was a suspect, which is partly why I’m mildly surprised to have seen this result. I believe the judge was entirely right when he sentenced the two to 18 months in jail each for their part in the incident, but nonetheless, it’s still nice to see that even when abuse of power is directed at criminals it’s taken as seriously as if it’s directed at the common person. Both officers have also lost their jobs, quite obviously, and their pensions.

The judge also commented that neither of the police officers had shown anything like remorse, and in fact they’d tried to justify their actions in what he saw as an arrogant fashion. You know they’ve irritated the judge somewhat to receive such words, which makes me wish I could have seen their faces whilst they stood in the witness box.

This all just makes me glad that those CCTV cameras are in interrogation rooms nowadays, and that certain standards are still expected of our police.