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    Burglar bitten by police dog can bring legal claim against GMP, judge rules
    United Kingdom

    Burglar bitten by police dog can bring legal claim against GMP, judge rules

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    18 Comments

    2. SuperrVillain85 on

      >“That is a factual dispute which can only be resolved at trial. Whether the release of Pd (police dog) Jerry without such a warning was grossly disproportionate will depend on the circumstances of the case as found by the trial judge.

      >“Whilst this is by no means a case where I can say at this stage that it would be grossly disproportionate, nor can I rule it out. The timing of the warning, the relative position of Mr Ward and PC Jackson will be relevant matters and those are matters for a trial.”

      Sounds sensible enough.

    3. AngusMcJockstrap on

      You basically have carte blanche to rob and steal anything from the average joe public in the UK lol. It’s essentially decriminalised. Its insane 

    4. balamb_maniac on

      Seems like there was an easy way this man could have avoided being targeted by a police dog.

    5. shadowed_siren on

      “…Ward was arrested while being wanted for nine burglaries, after leading police on a pursuit which led to him exiting his vehicle. He was later convicted of the burglaries and admitted dangerous driving during the police chase, and was jailed in February 2016.”

      “He claims the bite left him with long-term nerve damage and chronic pain.”

      Nine burglaries and dangerous driving. I have zero sympathy for him. What did he expect to happen? He was running from the police…

      Hopefully this is pretty easily resolved with the release of body worn video.

      Edit- this was in 2015 so no BWV. Which is probably why it’s going to trial. What a waste of resources.

    6. Popeychops on

      The fact that someone is thieving scum doesn’t mean they don’t have a right to dispute in court whether the use of a police dog against them was a grossly disproportionate use of force

      I would be pleased if the facts of the case are not in his favour

    7. PerfectEnthusiasm2 on

      Love it when commenters use extreme examples like this to argue that we should just remove the right to challenge state authorities in the courts.

    9. CameramanNick on

      This is really about the reputation of the police.

      I’d love to be able to assume that the police wouldn’t set a dog on someone without good reason.

      Unfortunately, that’s not an assumption I’m confident making.

      I think it’s very plausible that a small proportion of police officers would be happy to set a dog on someone in an act of performative revenge. I think it’s also plausible that a much larger proportion of police officers – probably most of them – would happily look the other way while that happened. I would expect this to be more likely if the guy had scorned the police officers involved, because they’re extremely protective of their own hurt feelings, but that’s another issue altogether.

      I wish none of this was so. It’s a tragedy. But police behaviour in the UK has not been wonderful for a long time and the result is a lack of confidence in their good behaviour.

      The fact that this guy might be an absolute scumbag is irrelevant. It’s the job of the courts to pass sentence, not the police. If they’re shown to have acted properly, so be it. If not, they should be charged with crimes and imprisoned like anyone else would be, and the fact that they are usually shown to be (to all practical purposes) immune from the criminal law is a large part of the problem.

    10. VelvetDreamers on

      I loathe burglars who commit crimes with purported ‘impunity’; violating the sanctity of someone’s home has mental repercussions for the victim to.

      Don’t want to be bitten by a police dog? Don’t break into someone’s home.

    11. phojayUK on

      A case where everyone is probably a dickhead.

      Burglar: Dickhead
      Police: Probably released the dog for no reason, dickheads.
      Judge: Wasting everyone’s money with a trial? Dickhead.

    13. Romado on

      Waste of the courts time.

      It happened 8 years ago and will be word vs word. There won’t be body cam footage or any other available evidence to be reviewed.

      Body cam footage that isn’t needed as part of a case or legal proceeding is automatically destroyed after 31 days for data protection.

      Police: We warned you there was a dog

      Burglar: No you didn’t.

      ???? How is a court supposed to make a reasonable judgement based on this.

    14. ankh87 on

      Low life scumbag who committed crimes gets karma.
      Lucky we aren’t living in a country with guns or he’d be killed.

    15. willgeld on

      What a waste of time and resource. Throw it out, he’s lucky the dog didn’t bite him twice

    16. xmBQWugdxjaA on

      Criminals should sacrifice all rights at the start of their crime.

      Self-defence and police action must be permitted, be it cases like this or Mark Duggan, etc.

      It’s crazy how often the victims or police end up being prosecuted instead of the criminals.

    18. CraicDealer1 on

      Can the tens of thousands of poor Irish souls you Brits murdered sue too?