A police disciplinary panel heard show she repeatedly hit the former footballer with a baton after he had been tasered to the ground in Telford.
A constable used “outrageous” and “unnecessary” force in repeatedly hitting ex-footballer Dalian Atkinson with a baton after he had been tasered to the ground, a disciplinary panel has been told.
Witnesses described Monk “stomping” on the victim’s head, with one calling the blows “ferocious” – while a police colleague, arriving at the scene, saw the veteran constable with the toe of his boot “resting” on Mr Atkinson’s scalp. University of Hull graduate Bettley-Smith, accused of assaulting Mr Atkinson, was tried alongside Monk after she delivered six blows from her police-issue baton – and only after the ex-Ipswich Town and Sheffield Wednesday forward had collapsed to the ground.But the Independent Office for Police Conduct found there was a gross misconduct disciplinary case to answer for her use of force which, if proven, means she could face immediate dismissal from West Mercia Police.
“The second set was clearly wholly unjustified – we say all of the strikes were unjustified,” barrister Dijen Basu KC, bringing the case for the force’s professional standards, said. Giving evidence on why she struck with her baton, Bettley-Smith told the panel during her evidence on Wednesday: “I just remember what I perceived to be a really aggressive, hostile, growling and just thought we had antagonised him even more by tasering him.
One neighbour saw Mr Atkinson “lying on the ground, was not moving”, another said “when he fell – he never moved”, and a third told how he “was not resistant”.A joint medical report summary recorded Mr Atkinson probably hit his head on the road as he was grounded by a 33-second-long Taser burst, and this was “likely to have caused concussion, exacerbated by any kick or kicks to the head” which would possibly “deepened any loss of consciousness”.
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