A “gentleman” police officer who was accused of clipping an abusive suspect around the ear has been cleared of assault.
Met Police officer Ian Smellie, 64, instructed fellow officers to turn their bodyworn cameras off before he walked around the corner with 24-year-old Asda worker Rafik Miah.
The experienced officer conceded he “may not have been very professional” as he took Mr Miah to task for calling a female colleague a “b*tch”.
But he insisted there had been no assault, and he had only raised his arm to fend off an attack from Mr Miah.
The PC walked free from City of London magistrates court at the end of a two-day trial after being acquitted by District Judge Samuel Goozee.
The incident happened after Mr Miah’s car was pulled over by police in Stoke Newington on November 10 last year.
The driver made a series of abusive remarks to officers as he was handcuffed and detained by PC Smellie at the roadside.
Once the search of the vehicle was complete, PC Smellie told officers “turn your cameras off”. His colleagues insisted this was a routine comment.
The officer then walked round the corner into Kyverdale Road to speak to Mr Miah, to “ask him when he thought he could speak to officers like that”.
“I was surprised when he lashed out at me with his left arm”, he said. “After parrying his swing, I turned around and walked away.”
Another officer at the scene, PC Kirsty Thatcher, said she had been on the receiving end of Mr Miah’s “nasty” comments.
She said PC Smellie was “sick and tired of how he (Miah) kept being towards me” and was “going to speak to him, telling him what’s right and what’s wrong”.
“I thought he was going to speak to him on a level as a gentleman, on how he should speak to women and about women in the future”, PC Thatcher added.
“PC Smellie is very respectful, not degrading, and not rude about women.”
Another officer described seeing PC Smellie deliver a “clip around the ear”, but conceded his view of the incident was partially obscured, while another of their colleagues said he witnessed Mr Miah throwing a punch.
PC Smellie, who joined the police force in 1994, has worked as a firearms trainer for fellow officers and received commendations from Scotland Yard and the Royal Humane Society.
Mr Miah’s evidence to the trial was delayed as he was arrested on Tuesday evening and held for questioning on Wednesday.
PC Smellie denied and was found not guilty of assault by beating.
