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Last year I had the indubitable pleasure of viewing some brutal and shocking CCTV.

There I sat, with a trusted colleague and a tight-lipped Sergeant, staring aghast at the images on a screen before me.

The door was closed, and we were the first people to see the footage (with the exception of the CCTV controllers, but they had been forced to sign a gagging order and we’d kidnapped three of their relatives as collateral).

The scene in question was a nameless and narrow high street, filled with clubbers, punters and smokers, with the odd uniformed constable visible on the periphery – ready to spring into action if the situation required.

In the corner of the screen the time displayed was 2344 – so this was clearly a weekend; and in the middle of the shot you could make out a lengthy queue of people waiting outside ‘Revolutions’, or some such other postmodern hell-hole.

To the right of the image, a tall, male police officer in a bright yellow jacket, could be seen wandering down the street with his shorter female crewmate. Both appeared to be ambling in an amicable manner, pausing occasionally to interact with civilians. It all seemed very courteous and unremarkable. A male and a female could then be seen walking past the two police officers.

Suddenly, without so much as an ‘Ello, Ello’, the male officer strides purposefully towards the gentleman and grabs hold of his arm. The female officer follows suit, and the passer-by now finds himself gripped up by two coppers. A struggle ensues, and the male is dragged to the left of the shot, and shoved roughly up against the wall. You can see the female officer pushing hard with one hand and speaking into her radio with the other, while her colleague tries to handcuff the male to the rear.

This doesn’t appear to be working very well, so there is some more rough and tumble, and eventually the officers manage to cuff the male behind his back. He is standing up, but jerking about all over the place – either having a medical fit or a hissy fit – you simply couldn’t tell.

Anyway, although he is facing forwards, he appears to try to head-butt the male police officer, who immediately puts his gloved right hand on the back of the male’s head.

I shift in my seat and stare closely at the screen. This was getting fruity.

My colleague beside me gasps, as the male police officer then shoves the prisoner forwards by the back of his neck, and pushes his head right through a plate glass window.

The Sergeant frowns and shakes his head, stopping the tape and rewinding it. We all watch it again in slow-motion, quietly drawing breath and puffing out our cheeks. We watch it for a third time, and then a fourth. I’d never seen a police officer thrust a prisoner through a window before, so it was certainly worth seeing plenty of times. Shame there wasn’t any popcorn.

The tape stops and we all sit back in our chairs.

‘Fuck me,’ says my colleague.

‘Doesn’t look good,’ says the Sergeant.

‘Hmmm,’ I replied.

That male officer – as you may have already guessed – was me.

So it’s been an interesting few days, what with police officers arresting blameless politicians, beating up war heroes and shooting harmless civilians on the steps of a cathedral. Certain bloggers have examined the case of the Tory politician, and added their thoughts about this particular ’scandal’.

Other police bloggers have focused on the CCTV footage of some corporal being lanced distractedly by a special squad, but I may have read the stories whilst pissed, so I can’t be sure. Whatever the case, there have been some distinct comments from all sectors of society regarding how they feel about this footage. After all, we’re supposed to be protecting you – not smacking your heads off the floor and otherwise performing moves that would make Jake the Snake Roberts nod in appreciation.

Rumour has it that we sometimes employ a tag-team style method – as there’s so many of us to go round – wherein we stand up, run to the sidelines, clang batons together, and the next police officer bursts into the fray with a blood-curdling scream and a sole remit to beat the living crap out of yet another ‘innocent’.

As for me, I didn’t push that male’s head through a window. He fully admitted in interview that he did it himself. And as far as I can recall, he was just a pissed baggage-handler from Heathrow, whose conduct on the street (not at all evident on the CCTV) was certainly deserving police intervention.

He had walked past the queue of nightclub customers and shouted some quite nasty racial abuse at the doorman. I called to him to stop, and he shouted out – whilst walking off – to ‘Fuck off you c**t’, which everyone in the vicinity heard. Some people have made ropey arrests for ‘Section 5′, but I heard several people gasp simultaneously in pure shock, and the doorman was already clambering over the rope to intervene.

When we paused and watched the footage for a fifth time, and zoomed in, it was quite clear – as I knew all along – that my hand wasn’t touching the prisoner’s head when he lurched forwards and smacked his face through the glass. It was simply how it appeared.

And while this does not excuse real police brutality, or fully exonerate officers when they are a touch heavy-handed, it shows that with a certain tilt, some background music, and some choice phrases, you can draw whatever conclusion you want when watching some isolated and decontextualised images from the comfort of your own chair.

PC Michael Pinkstone

This Victorian Playground Part 1 and Part 2 available to order from a shop with a smashed window. Not my fault …