thats a fair point, easiest term to use. i'm in canada now, PC has been drained out of me.

no on both counts i'm afraid. i'm afraid you forget, get complacent and its only a matter of time before it happens again.
my female partner punched her square in the mouth and knocked her front tooth out apparently. i don't recall i was out of it on the floor.

I doubt he had the option to do that. The force, his union, the government as liability carrier in the event a related civil action, would all have an interest in what he had to say. I very much doubt he sat alone and decided that the juice was a threat to him.

right i'm off to work anyway, leave you folks with it. let you know if i terrorize any 'members of the public/customers/citizens' with guns, tasers and sticks.

Oh, he's a fall guy for institutionalized stupidity all right. The way that the police deal with this kind of demo is dreadful - I've been to a couple in my time and the way they box people in just encourages people to behave the way that girl is doing. Somebody senior should have resigned over this; and over the newspaper guy who died on his way home; and especially over the mendez cover up etc. But we both know that isn't ever going to happen.

Quite.

I don't think it has to be something that he has to have known but something that could influence someone in their verdict.

That's not the way it should be, of course, but in this thread there are comments suggesting she deserved it and that's without even knowing her behaviour; just assumptions about her.

It's not too far a stretch that a jury or magistrates would be influenced negatively about her and be less likely to go for a guilty verdict.

It wouldn't be the first time would it?

As for video evidence, I recall a similar case many years ago where a policeman was seen kicking someone - although it was a photo rather than film/video. Somehow a not guilty verdict was returned.

People read too many stories about trials. The simple issue here is whether he acted reasonably. Her chaviness is not an issue, what she did, to a large extent is not an issue, what is an issue is whether he used excessive force. If he did, he will be convicted, if he didn't, he won't. Simple as

But there are real life examples, not just TV, where things other than evidence has influenced outcomes.

There was even one famous case where the judge effectively said the jury had ignored the evidence.

I had a look at the article from the first day of the trial.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/8580211.stm

Rather than it being a deliberate legal strategy to just rely on the video it seems that she simply failed to turn up in court, as did her b/f who is also a witness in the trial. Her witness statement was excluded.

Apparently she "doubts" the abilities of the prosecution team.

It also seems she did make the complaint originally as did another protestor. It was considered there wasn't enough evidence in the other complaint to bring a case.

At what stage does she become liable for wasting everyones time?

There are. I won an appeal once because I alleged the judge had fallen asleep for more than 50% of the evidence. It was civil trial so no jury

Or was he just resting his eyes?

Why are many of you referring to the woman as a girl??

Chick, then. A hippy chick.

She must have been resting her eyes for a very long time. I kid you not, it was for hours at a time.

Fortunately my opponent, when asked whether what we were alleging was true, admitted that it was. Without that, I really don't know how successful the appeal would have been.