Man arrested and stripped over 'crime' he did not commit
Police force said it has "made no apology" to David Griffiths
A man has been paid £5,000 by Cheshire Constabulary after he was tightly handcuffed and stripped for a crime he had not committed. Animal rights campaigner David Griffiths, 32, was looking for injured badgers after a recent cull in Davenham in Cheshire when he was arrested with two other people in his car.
The three people were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage after officers shone an ultraviolet torch on them and claimed there was evidence of paint – applied to badger traps to identify thieves and potential vandals – on their clothes. However, in reality only one trap in the area had gone missing in the previous four days and had not been recovered, according to Mr Griffiths's solicitors.
And when the torch was shone on Mr Griffiths, originally from St Helens but now living in Liverpool, and his fellow campaigners "nothing showed up apart from a little bit of dried mud", he claimed. Despite this Mr Griffiths said he was handcuffed tightly and forced to undress so his clothes could be forensically tested.
However, tests showed there was no evidence of paint, according to his solicitors. Mr Griffiths decided to take legal action against Cheshire Constabulary over the incident, which happened in October 2019. On the first day of a trial last month, the force agreed to pay a settlement to Mr Griffiths.
When approached for a statement in response to the settlement, a spokesperson for the force said: "The constabulary has made no apology nor admission of liability in this case. No further comment will be made at this time."
Mr Griffiths told the ECHO: "The cull takes place every year. I went there to look for badgers that were injured. The police know there are people doing that legitimately as well as people who are damaging the traps. I was there sitting in the road – I was just a driver.
"The police showed up and checked our addresses. They told us to get out the car and searched our clothes with purple torches to see if there was evidence of UV paint. Nothing showed up on me apart from a little bit of dried mud. Despite this we were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and handcuffed. It was quite outrageous really."
Mr Griffiths added: "It was my first experience with the police, but given what people have said in the activist community I was sadly expecting them to behave like that. I was still surprised that I was actually arrested. I didn't do anything about it at the time.
"I was going to complain but I knew they would investigate it themselves which is like them marking their own homework. I knew I had to challenge them legally but I wasn't mentally in a good position at the time and didn't want the added stress."
Mr Griffiths claimed although his clothes were confirmed to not show traces of UV paint police officers did not return them back for two months. After Mr Griffiths received legal aid, he looked to move ahead with civil proceedings against Cheshire Constabulary. He told the ECHO that a possible settlement could have been reached in 2023, but claimed the force "wanted to make it as difficult and stressful as they could".
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Instead the force agreed to settle last month for £5,000 on the first day of a jury trial. Mr Griffiths called the settlement a "massive weight off my shoulders" and hopes it will bring to an end his struggles that have seen him stop and searched by a number of different forces "all because of this incident".
Chris Topping, consultant solicitor at Broudie Jackson Canter, who represented Mr Griffiths in his civil case, said: "The behaviour of the police in this incident was inexcusable. They had no evidence that a crime had been committed yet arrested him on the pretext that it had. To make matters worse they spun this case out for years, only to settle on the steps of the court on the first day of the trial."
