What happened
In September 2008 a 16-year-old pupil at a specialist school went with four other pupils and three members of staff to a swimming baths in west London. He was severely autistic and epileptic, could not speak, had learning disabilities and could not tolerate being touched. The trip was a familiarisation visit. Nobody was going to swim.
He broke away, went to the poolside and became fixated on the water. His carer tried to draw him away with crisps. The pool manager lost patience and telephoned the police, describing “a disabled male trying to get in the pool” whose carer was trying to stop him and who “is getting aggressive”. The judge found no evidence that he was aggressive or angry at any point.
Two uniformed officers arrived at about 3.30pm. One touched him on the back. He moved closer to the water and jumped in, fully clothed. The officers pulled him out, handcuffed him, applied leg restraints and held him in the back of a police van before handing him to his carers.
The outcome
Sir Robert Nelson gave judgment on 14 March 2012 and awarded £28,250. He found the police response “over-hasty and ill-informed” and the restraint “wholly inappropriate”. All the claims succeeded, including assault and battery, false imprisonment, disability discrimination and breaches of Articles 3, 5 and 8. He refused permission to appeal.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the Commissioner’s appeal in February 2013. Lord Dyson said nothing could justify the manner of the restraint, and that “Operational discretion is not sacrosanct”.
What went wrong
The judge identified a failure to take charge and to inform themselves. One officer should have gathered the facts before deciding anything. That did not happen.
The trained carer was saying do not touch him, and warning that touching him would make him jump. The warning was not acted on, and neither officer understood what force would do to an autistic person. The call was misleading too: a disabled teenager at the edge of a pool had been described as aggressive, and neither officer corrected it on arrival.
What followed was a chain rather than a decision: a touch, a jump, a rescue, then handcuffs and leg restraints on a child who had not offended.
What it teaches
The carer is the specialist in the room. When the person who knows the disabled person says do not touch him, that is operational intelligence, not interference.
Two questions asked before anyone lays hands on would have changed this: what is wrong with him, and what happens if I touch him.
The third lesson is about the label on the call. “Aggressive” arrived before the officers did and shaped what they saw. Someone who had lost patience wrote the description, and nobody tested it.
Questions for the room
- The carer said touching him would make him jump. An officer touched him and he jumped. Where does that chain start?
- You arrive and see a fully clothed teenager at the edge of a pool. What do you do in the first sixty seconds?
- The call said aggressive and it was not true. What in your call handling would catch that before officers arrive?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: confirmed, on the vault record and the case précis, which agree on the damages, findings and outcome. No disciplinary outcome for either officer is recorded.
A court order protects the claimant’s identity, so this page gives no name, initials, school or baths. He was 16 at the time of the events; the record’s other figure, 19, is his age at the trial.
Our restraint reduction training covers the decisions that come before anyone is touched.
Sources
- Judiciary of England and Wales, 14 March 2012
- The Guardian, 14 March 2012
- BBC News, 14 February 2013
Reviewed 20 October 2026.