Former footballer Dalian Atkinson died in August 2016; Police Constable Mary Ellen Bettley-Smith has been found guilty of gross misconduct for using excessive force when she repeatedly batoned Atkinson after he had been Tasered to the ground
Friday 17 March 2023 15:57, UK
A police constable has kept her job despite being found guilty by a disciplinary panel of gross misconduct for using excessive force when she repeatedly hit an ex-footballer with her baton after he was Tasered to the ground.
An independent tribunal found on Friday that Mary Ellen Bettley-Smith, a West Mercia Police officer, acted wrongly when she struck Dalian Atkinson three times with her police-issue baton during an incident in the early hours of August 15 2016, after which the ex-sportsman died.
The panel could have sacked Bettley-Smith, a University of Hull graduate originally from Staffordshire, without notice but instead handed her a final written warning.
The move came after the barrister who presented the case against her, Dijen Basu KC, said West Mercia's Police's Deputy Chief Constable had instructed that the panel be asked to consider the lesser sanction, as well as dismissal without notice.
Former Aston Villa striker Atkinson died after being kicked at least twice in the head by Ms Bettley-Smith's more experienced colleague, PC Benjamin Monk, outside the victim's father's home in Telford, Shropshire, six-and-a-half years ago.
After Atkinson was tasered to the ground and kicked in the head, PC Bettley-Smith, 33, used her police-issue baton on him claiming she "perceived" he was trying to get up, although several civilian eyewitnesses recalled the 48-year-old "was not moving" and "was not resistant".
While the panel found three initial strikes, before Monk's kicks, were "lawful", it found PC Bettley-Smith's decision to then hit Atkinson another three times, after police back-up arrived, was "unnecessary, disproportionate and unreasonable in all the circumstances and therefore unlawful".
Monk was jailed for eight years in 2021 after his conviction at Birmingham Crown Court for manslaughter.
PC Bettley-Smith was cleared of assaulting Atkinson after a trial, but the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found there was a gross misconduct disciplinary case to answer for her use of force.
While the panel found three initial strikes - before Monk's kicks - were "lawful", it found Bettley-Smith's decision to then hit Atkinson another three times, after police back-up arrived, were "unnecessary, disproportionate and unreasonable in all the circumstances and therefore unlawful".
