South Wales police inspector accused of assaulting ‘vulnerable’ boy

A police inspector accused of assaulting a “vulnerable” boy who was filming outside a police station told colleagues he was tired of “internet freaks”, a court has heard.

Insp Dean Gittoes, 49, of South Wales police, is accused of beating the 16-year-old outside Merthyr Tydfil police station.

Gittoes denies using excessive force to arrest and detain the alleged victim under the Terrorism Act.

Prosecutors say the arrest was “invalid” and that Gittoes acted as he did having had a “bad weekend” and because of his frustration with how a similar incident he was involved with had been handled by his bosses.

The incident involving the 16-year-old was captured in a video recorded by the teenager, who claimed at the time to be “auditing” the station. Auditing refers to an online community of people who record and upload videos of buildings such as police stations.

The footage taken on the boy’s phone was played during the first day of Gittoes’ trial at Cwmbran magistrates court on Monday.

It showed the teenager, wearing a face mask and baseball cap, walking around the station building on 20 August last year before being confronted by Gittoes.

Gittoes asked the teenager for his name and to stop filming, before saying he suspected him of terrorism.

When the teenager refused to stop, claiming to have the right to record on public property, the officer arrested him under the Terrorism Act.

The screen went black and the sound of a scuffle could be heard as Gittoes grabbed the boy’s phone and led him inside the police station.

CCTV from inside the station showed Gittoes holding the youth in an authorised arm restraint as he tells him to “stop struggling”.

The officer then appears to use the restraint to bring the teenager to his knees and later seems to forcefully push the teenager into a wall.

The teenager’s cries of pain and “he’s choking me” can be heard as he is taken inside the custody suite and Gittoes tells colleagues: “Six weeks ago I dealt with someone like this and the bosses so far think it’s a joke. Anyone I catch now I don’t give them a chance. I’ve got 36,000 people on the internet calling me a shit.”

The officer was referring to a previous confrontation with another member of the online auditing community.

When questioned, Gittoes said he restrained the teenager because he believed he could be dangerous, and denied purposely choking him.

The prosecutor Jason Howells said: “The prosecution say the video footage shows the victim was not resisting. The defendant went to speak to the victim purely because he had had a bad weekend and was annoyed at what had happened weeks before with another auditor.

“He said he was fed up of those ‘clowns’ and ‘internet freaks’ videoing him and putting it on the internet. We say the invalid and incorrect arrest and the way the victim was dealt with after the arrest amounted to an assault.”

In an interview, the teenager, described in court as vulnerable, said: “The way he was holding my hand hurt a lot. I was in pain.”

Questioning him in court via video link, Christopher Rees KC, defending, suggested the teenager was attempting to “hide his identity”. The youth denied this. The barrister claimed his client could have believed the teenager was involved in a “hostile reconnaissance”.

DI Katherine Morris, a counter-terrorism officer, said that when she spoke to Gittoes on the phone afterwards he was “aggressive”. She said: “I explained to him that in my opinion a terrorism offence had not been committed, but he just continued with his outburst.”

The trial, which is being presided over by a district judge, continues.

Agencies contributed to this report.