PC facing attack inquiry retired through ill health – three days later he got another job with police
THE dossier of complaints against PC Simon Harwood that the jury never saw takes up no fewer than five ringbinder files.
It shows how he managed to sidestep a series of disciplinary hearings to end up on the G20 front line.
PC Harwood, 45, started his career at the Metropolitan Police in 1995 and quickly established a reputation for aggression.
On April 7, 2000, he was accused of a road rage assault after a minor collision with a motorist while off duty. PC Harwood was said to have run at the other driver, slamming him back over the car door in front of horrified witnesses.
He then announced that he was a police officer and arrested the driver for common assault.
Another officer noticed PC Harwood had doctored his notes to justify the arrest, saying the motorist had refused to give his details.
Chief Inspector Les Jones concluded that his behaviour had ‘fallen well below that expected by a police officer’ and PC Harwood was charged with misconduct for unlawful arrest, abuse of authority and discreditable behaviour.
Scotland Yard paid out compensation to the victim, who complained of unnecessary force.
But on August 22, 2001 – three weeks after he was charged – a note was placed in PC Harwood’s file saying he was to be medically retired owing to a shoulder injury sustained in an offduty motorbike accident in 1998.
He left with a full pension on September 14, 2001, and the case was closed days before disciplinary proceedings would have begun. Three days later he was apparently well enough to rejoin the same force as a civilian computer worker in Croydon.
His superiors there say they were not informed of the unresolved disciplinary issue and neither were Surrey Police when he transferred there in April 2003.
It was not long before he was accused of violence again, this time by a fellow officer. In January 2004, while carrying out an arrest at a flat, PC Harwood was accused of grabbing the suspect by the throat and pushing him into a wooden table so hard that it broke.
According to his colleague, PC Harwood punched the man against a wall. As the man was led away, he shouted at Harwood: ‘I’ll ****ing have you.’
PC Harwood is said to have snarled back: ‘Go on then, I’ll do you all over again.’ The shocked colleague made a formal complaint. But PC Harwood requested a transfer back to the Met and the matter was later dropped as unsubstantiated.
Within a few months, PC Harwood was able to join Scotland Yard’s riot squad, the Territorial Support Group (TSG), without a glance at his record. Concerns over his behaviour continued and in May 2005 a former council
‘Sent him into red mist mode’
adviser made a complaint on seeing PC Harwood knee a suspect in the groin to force him to the ground, before kneeing him again in the kidney as he handcuffed and arrested the man in Streatham, South London.
The complaint was settled without any sanction against PC Harwood.
In January 2006, he was accused of attempting to steal a mobile phone and threatening to send officers around to break into a man’s home and burn it down. He was also alleged to have racially abused and punched the man’s 14-year-old daughter in the back of the neck. But the allegations were never investigated.
The only complaint ever formally upheld against PC Harwood was when he admitted unlawfully accessing the police national computer on October 16, 2008 to check up on a motorist who had been in a road accident with the officer’s wife, Helen.
PC Harwood said a phone call about the accident from his wife sent him into ‘red mist mode’. He later received a written warning.
There were two further incidents resulting in no action before the Ian Tomlinson tragedy. The true nature of PC Harwood’s past was kept secret from the juries in the latest trial and at Mr Tomlinson’s inquest last year, as it was deemed too prejudicial.
During the inquest, which returned a verdict of unlawful killing, Matthew Ryder QC, representing Mr Tomlinson’s family, said the officer should have been removed from uniform long ago. ‘There can be no question that PC Harwood is willing to abuse his position as a police officer when angry or upset and act unlawfully.
‘This is a rogue officer who shouldn’t have been where he was, in a position where he could do what he did.’
The PC, suspended on full pay since Mr Tomlinson’s death, shares a £300,000 home in Carshalton, Surrey, with his wife and two young sons. He will face a public disciplinary hearing for gross misconduct in September.
Yesterday the Independent Police Complaints Commission said the case would continue to have long-term implications for public confidence in police and how officers are judged.