Drink-drive case against police officer thrown out Judge rules that West Midlands Police used non-existent law to charge her
BUNGLING West Midlands Police tried to prosecute one of its own officers for failing to provide a breath test – using a law which did not exist.
A judge criticised the force for the embarrassing error as he threw the case out against PC Sarah Stevens-Burns.
District Judge Shamin Qureshi dismissed the case and said that the 48-year-old had been wrongly charged.
He criticised both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service for failing to spot the error of tabling a charge that no longer existed.
Ms Stevens-Burns is a West Midlands Police Federation representative whose job is to support other officers alleged to have breached the force’s professional standards.
It was a senior officer from the force’s professional standards investigation team, whose job was to pursue those misconduct allegations against her colleagues, who accused her of being “intoxicated” outside Balsall Heath police station at about 9.40am on February 5.
Ms Stevens-Burns had been representing a colleague at a special disciplinary hearing at the station.
Kamar Uddin, prosecuting, said other officers from the force’s pro- fessional standards team involved in that misconduct hearing claimed she smelled of “intoxicant liquor”.
They reported their suspicions to a departmental colleague, Det Insp Brian Carmichael, who followed Ms Stevens-Burns. He watched her get into her car parked on the road outside the station, before knocking on the passenger side window.
Ms Stevens-Burns, of Stourbridge, was sitting in the driver’s seat with the engine off, on her phone, and opened the passenger door to him. Det Insp Carmichael confronted her about the suspicions of colleagues. He asked her to return to the station, but she drove off towards Moseley Road.
Birmingham Magistrates Court heard that the detective inspector had called for traffic unit to breath- alyse the female officer, but they only turned up after she had left the scene.
Her barrister Adrian Keeling QC said that both the police and CPS lawyers had tabled a charge that was “wrong in law” and asked that the case be dismissed.
He pointed out that the wording was from a now obsolete section of the 1988 Road Traffic Act, which had been superseded by an amendment act passed by Parliament in 2004.
“The charge brought is wrong in law, and that comes first and foremost, regardless of evidence,” said Mr Keeling. “The law is the law, but it has to be the law in force at the time of the offence.”
In any case, his client denied any wrongdoing.
Judge Shamim Qureshi said: “The wording is identical to wording which was got rid of by Parliament in 2004.
“The allegation was that she was asked to provide a specimen of breath by Insp Carmichael but on the facts that isn’t the case at all.
“The inspector was asking for her to come back to the police station.
“The wording was abolished 12 years ago and it’s extremely surprising that this has been overlooked by both the original police officer and by the CPS as well.
“I find the allegation not proved and dismissed.”
The allegation was that she was asked to provide a specimen of breath by Inspector Carmichael but on the facts that isn’t the case at all Judge Shamim Qureshi