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Two former police officers who were fired in 2023 after stopping and searching two athletes, British world championship medallist Bianca Williams and Portugal Olympic sprinter Ricardo Dos Santos, have won an appeal against their dismissal. The two officers, Jonathan Clapham and Sam Franks, lied during the stop and search by saying they could smell cannabis in July 2020, according to an earlier ruling. Following the appeal, the officers will be reinstated to the Metropolitan Police and receive back-pay. The original finding was overturned by the Police Appeals Tribunal, which found the decision was “inconsistent” and “irrational.”
Williams and Dos Santos were pulled over and searched on suspicion of having drugs and weapons, but nothing was found. The couple was returning home from training with their baby, who was just three months old at the time. The couple has said that racial profiling played a role in the officers’ conduct, but this complaint was not upheld in the original misconduct tribunal. During the original disciplinary panel, Clapham and Franks were found to have lied about smelling cannabis during the stop and search, which prompted their dismissal.
The Police Appeals Tribunal decision has been described as “disappointing” by Dos Santos, who said that he and Williams would challenge it in the civil courts. Mr. Clapham’s representative, Hugh Davies, has stated that the officers had “every reason to suspect criminality” when they stopped Dos Santos. Another officer at the scene reportedly smelled the cannabis but was not found to have lied. The officers were “dedicated, hard-working and much respected officers” whose reputations had been “ruined” by the original findings, according to Appeals Tribunal chairman Damien Moore.
The Metropolitan Police Federation’s chairman, Rick Prior, has welcomed the decision, stating that the officers have been “fully exonerated and their reputations have rightly been restored.” He went on to criticize the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), the police watchdog, which referred the officers to the misconduct tribunal, stating that the reinstatements were “yet another damning indictment.
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