Officer who kicked 13-year-old girl avoids prison sentence
A POLICE sergeant who kicked a ‘vulnerable’ 13-yearold girl like a football has avoided a jail term after he told a court he was using a ‘Home Office-approved distraction technique’.
Police Sergeant Ian Cheesman was captured on CCTV footage booting the child inside a police cell.
He claimed this was a professional technique taught to police officers and wasn’t an angry retaliation to being kicked by the girl seconds beforehand.
The 53-year-old made the girl cry out in pain before asking ‘How do you like being kicked?’
During a trial at Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court, Sgt Cheesman denied one charge of common assault and claimed he used appropriate force with a ‘distraction strike’.
But this was dismissed by the judge, who ruled he had retaliated after being provoked by the teenager.
Lucy Paddick, prosecuting, told the court Sgt Cheesman was the principal custody sergeant at Chichester custody centre for a 12-hour night shift on April 5-6 last year.
The court heard the teenager was being processed for release just after midnight when a custody assistant shouted for help after the girl kicked him and ‘smacked’ her appropriate adult who had come to collect her.
The father-of-three said he rushed to help, leaving his personal protective equipment behind, to calm her down by using a ‘stern parent voice’.
Sgt Cheesman, of Goringby-Sea, was handed a oneyear community order with a requirement of 50 hours’ unpaid work. He was also ordered to pay £625 costs and a £95 victim surcharge.
He worked for Sussex Police for 29 years before retiring in January.