Two Met police officers sacked over stop-and-search of Team GB athlete Bianca Williams reinstated 'with back pay'

4 October 2024, 11:47 | Updated: 4 October 2024, 13:09

Two Metropolitan Police officers who were sacked over the stop and search of black athlete Bianca Williams and her partner have been given their jobs back.

The officers won an appeal against a ruling that they lied by saying they could smell cannabis during the stop and search in 2020.

The Police Appeals Tribunal found the original decision was "irrational" and "inconsistent" and that the officers should receive back pay.

It said the officers were "dedicated, hard-working and much respected officers" whose reputations had been "ruined" by the original findings.

"Both officers did not lie. Both officers will now be reinstated to the Met Police. They should receive back-pay."

Last year the officers were found guilty of gross misconduct.

PCs Jonathan Clapham and Sam Franks were found to have been untruthful about the smell of cannabis at the time of the stop on July 4 2020 and in October last year they were found guilty of gross misconduct.

The misconduct panel found PCs Clapham and Franks in breach of professional standards around honesty & integrity.

Police body camera footage of Bianca Williams stop-and-search

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Olympic sprinter Mr Dos Santos and his partner and Team GB athlete Ms Williams made a complaint to the police watchdog saying they were racially profiled during an encounter on July 4 2020.

They were followed by police as they drove to their west London home from training with their baby son, then three months old, in the back seat of their Mercedes.

The couple were handcuffed and searched on suspicion of having drugs and weapons after they were pulled over outside their property, but nothing was found.

Mr Dos Santos accused the officers of detaining him for “DWB, driving while black”.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) brought the case against the five officers and said that the detention of Mr Dos Santos and Ms Williams was "because they were black" and was "excessive, unreasonable and unjustified".

Karon Monaghan KC, for the IOPC, told the panel at the start of last October's hearing that the watchdog's case will say there is "institutional discrimination" in the Met Police.

The IOPC's case relied on wider documents and reports that indicated black people are "much more likely" to be stopped and searched in London more generally, and that black people are "routinely treated" with "more suspicion and hostility" by police officers and "stereotyped as criminal".

Mr Dos Santos told the panel while giving evidence that he had been "afraid" for the safety of his partner and his son.

When asked why he should be afraid of the police, the sprinter told of his "traumatic experiences" as a young black person who had been stopped by police on "multiple occasions" in the past.

He said he believes he is stereotyped as a black man driving a "nice car" as someone who "must be engaged in criminality", the misconduct hearing was told.

The panel heard Mr Dos Santos was stopped nine times within four weeks of buying a car in 2018.

When shown body-worn footage of him mocking and swearing at the officers, he accepted his behaviour, saying: "Everybody deals with trauma differently."

Ms Williams cried as she watched footage of Mr Dos Santos getting pulled from the driver's seat to the roadside and handcuffed.

She denied suggestions her partner could have acted differently to avoid police attention, insisting that "he can't change the colour of his skin".

All five officers gave evidence over the course of the misconduct hearing in which they denied accusations of racism.

The panel heard they followed Mr Dos Santos in their police carrier because of the "appalling" and "suspicious" nature of his driving and were doing their duty when they conducted the stop and search.

Ms Monaghan told the panel that these were "exaggerated" descriptions that did not "reflect the reality" of Mr Dos Santos not speeding around corners, indicating before all of his turns, not driving through red lights and not skidding on the road.