Officer ‘feared for his life in Atkinson encounter’
THE police officer accused of murdering ex-footballer Dalian Atkinson has told a jury he was “terrified” he and his colleague “were going to die” during the encounter.
Prosecutors claim West Mercia Police Constable Benjamin Monk, who denies murder and manslaughter, used unlawful and unreasonable force during a final 33-second firing of a Taser, and by then kicking former Aston Villa star Atkinson in the head.
Jurors have heard that three Taser cartridges were deployed by Monk before Mr Atkinson, who later died in hospital, was handcuffed near his father’s home in Meadow Close, Telford, Shropshire, in the early hours of August 15, 2016.
Giving evidence for the first time in his defence at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday, Monk said he felt “a big relief ” when Mr Atkinson was floored after being Tasered the third time. Two previous Taser strikes had been ineffective, he told the jury, leaving him with his third, and final, cartridge.
Monk said Mr Atkinson allegedly told him, during the incident, that “you can put 100,000 volts through me, I’m the f****** Messiah – your Taser won’t work and now I’m going to take you to the gates of hell”.
Asked how he felt after the second Taser strike failed, the officer of then14 years’ service, said: “I remember just thinking, ‘we’re done for’.”
When Patrick Gibbs QC, Monk’s barrister, asked the officer what he did next, he replied: “Ran for my life – we ran away”, something he told jurors he had never done.
The 43-year-old said: “He (Mr Atkinson) was very, very scary.
“And the device which I thought might work for me, hadn’t worked, and I was terrified.”
Monk and a junior colleague, with whom he was in a relationship at the time, Pc Mary Ellen Bettley-Smith, backed away from Atkinson, while waiting for more officers to arrive.
By this time Mr Atkinson had smashed the glass in the front door of the property belonging to his father.
Both officers had been sent to the address in Meadow Close, after members of the public called 999, soon after Mr Atkinson arrived, reporting a concern for the welfare of the elderly occupant.
During the course of the first two failed Taser strikes, Bettley-Smith called for back-up, activating her emergency button, calling all available units to the location.
Monk then described hearing one of the back-up units radioing to tell them they were still “six minutes” away.
He said: “That is a transmission I definitely remember, because it struck absolute fear in me to think the nearest crew was so far away.”
Monk said, having backed away into the street, he Tasered Mr Atkinson a third time, and this time the exfootball star “stopped moving and seemed to stop where he was”. He added: “He fell to the floor.” Asked how he felt in that moment, Monk replied: “The fear I had when he was coming towards me knowing I was on the last (Taser) cartridge, and everything else had failed.
“In concert with that, if this cartridge didn’t work, Ellie (BettleySmith), me, the gentleman inside the house, were potentially done for.”
Bettley-Smith, 31, is also on trial, and denies a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, by using her force-issue extendable baton.
The trial continues.