Police apologise to 75-year-old widow for midnight raid error
Councillor’s home mistaken for that of rapist after address blunder
A 75-year-old widow whose home was raided by police officers with riot shields at midnight, after they mistakenly thought her house was the address of a violent rapist, has received an apology from Kent Police.
Margaret Rose, who lives alone and suffers from a heart condition, said she was “shocked beyond words” when three officers forced their way into her flat in Tufton Street in Maidstone.
Mrs Rose, a magistrate and also a Maidstone borough councillor, was asleep when police started hammering on her door in the middle of the night on Friday, March 25.
She has always maintained it was not so much the error – her address had been wrongly entered on a police computer as that of the suspect – but the fact the officers, having realised they had made a mistake, immediately left with no apparent concern for her welfare that upset her.
She said: “If they had asked to be let in, I’d have said: ‘Gladly, please do.’
“But they forced their way in and left me in such a state, I thought I was going to have a heart attack, and there was no follow-up welfare call the next day.”
Mrs Rose lodged an official complaint and four months after it happened, DCI Richard O’Toole completed an internal investigation.
He wrote: “She was clearly distressed about what had happened and just as importantly what had not happened.”
He noted officers had entered her address “in full tactical gear and equipment”.
He said: “It was also clear that Mrs Rose had not had a follow-up visit to check on her welfare.”
The incident had understandably left her “distressed and angry”.
DCI O’Toole said that his own mother was the same age as Mrs Rose and he felt that if she had been subjected to a similar incident involving the police, she too “would have been extremely distressed and scared”.
He said: “It is 100% appropriate to provide a sincere apology.”
DCI O’Toole determined that officers had visited Mrs Rose’s address because of an inputting error on the police intelligence system.
He said: “This mistake has been corrected and it will not happen again.
“Mrs Rose was clear that she is very much a supporter of the police, and she did not seek any formal misconduct proceedings for any officer around these matters, but she wanted only that learning should come out of it, which of course is a perfectly reasonable expectation.”
He discovered that the three officers had not made the Maidstone duty manager aware of the incident, though they had mentioned it “in passing” to the Tonbridge duty manager, who took no action, assuming it would be dealt with by the Maidstone office.
DCI O’Toole said: “The Maidstone duty manager should have been made aware that the wrong address had been entered
and the vulnerabilities of any person at the address should also have been highlighted so that a welfare visit could have been arranged for the next day.”
However, he said, given that the officers were misled into entering the wrong address, their “dynamic” entry was lawful given the urgent need to detain the dangerous suspect they believed to be there.
DCI O’Toole later visited Mrs Rose in the company of the officer who had led the raid, APS Will Derry, who made his own personal apology.
Mrs Rose said: “I’m very pleased with the report. Both officers came over as very genuine, honest coppers.
“We ask our police to do a lot of things that we wouldn’t want our own nearest and dearest to do.
“It’s a tough job and I’m grateful to them.”
‘They forced their way in and left me in such a state, I thought I was going to have a heart attack’