A police officer who slapped a 16-year-old boy with mental health difficulties “multiple times in the face” as he was being transported to a hospital in London has been found guilty of assault.
Judge Briony Clarke found Metropolitan police PC Sevda Gonen of assault for striking the boy “multiple times in the face with an open palm” after “she allowed her frustrations to get the better of her” on 13 November 2023, according to the prosecution.
Gonen, 33, of Leytonstone, London, and another Met police PC, Stuart Price, 35, were also found guilty of carrying out an unlawful search, amounting to assault by beating at Westminster magistrates court on Friday.
Police were initially called after the boy was reported to have been aggressive at his home address and acted violently towards a mental health worker who was attempting to perform an assessment.
A camera inside a police vehicle captured a conversation between the officers on their way to the boy’s home, in which Gonen was heard to call him “a fucking little shit”, the court heard.
Price said of the boy: “He’s a fucking dickhead,” with his colleague replying, “I’ve had enough of him.”
Gonen apologised for the remarks on Thursday, telling the court the conversation was “in the heat of the moment”.
Prosecutor Lyndon Harris said Gonen “in particular disliked” the boy and “had formed the impression that he was wasting their time by faking some form of mental illness”.
Once at the address, Price, of Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire, offered to drive the boy to hospital in a police van after his mother told officers she was concerned for her son’s welfare.
Footage from within the police vehicle showed that the boy lit a cigarette and started to smoke as the van was driven to hospital, the court heard.
Gonen then climbed into the caged back of the vehicle and pushed the boy into the corner, which the prosecution accepted was lawful. After a struggle, the boy was placed in handcuffs but not arrested.
In a subsequent use of force form filled out by Price, the officer said the boy had “actively offered resistance to Gonen’s efforts to take his cigarette”, with Gonen writing in her form the boy offered “aggressive resistance”.
Gonen said the boy’s smoking made her “panic” as there were “huge safety risks”, adding that she suffers from asthma and smoking in the vehicle was “criminal damage”.
The boy was searched after officers expressed concern he could have something in his pockets.
The prosecution said the search was unlawful as the boy had not been arrested.
Price told the court the search was to “prevent further offences taking place”.
Judge Clarke said she was satisfied that the search was unlawful, adding that the officers carried out the search “giving no thoughts to what power they had or even if they had any powers”.
Gonen and Price will be sentenced on 24 January.