A policewoman today recreated for an Old Bailey j

A policewoman today recreated for an Old Bailey jury the way she
saw a colleague deliberately stamp on the face of a handcuffed
suspect.

Georgina Christoforou, a special constable, stamped her foot down
heavily three times in imitation of the way Harold Benn was allegedly
attacked in the back of a police van.

Mr Benn, 25, looked on emotionlessly from the public gallery as she
did so.

On trial are PC Mason, 28, and PC Gavin Larter, 24.

They deny assaulting Mr Benn, of Mitcham, causing him bodily
harm and perverting justice by writing false notes about the incident.

Another officer in the van during the alleged assault, Special
Constable Kevin Lucking, also denies perverting justice.

WPC Christoforou, 22, said she had been so ‘sickened, angry and
upset’ by the incident that she was on the brink of resigning from the
force.

But instead she chose to blow the whistle on the brutality she saw
on January 6 1990 and suffer the ‘cold-shouldering and insults’ that are
meted out to those who ‘grass’ on their fellow officers.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it in the police before,’ she told
the jury.

‘I considered putting in my notice.

I felt helpless.

I didn’t know
what to do about it.

I didn’t want to be the one to tell tales.

‘I wouldn’t have believed it if it was said there was gratuitous
violence by the police.

‘I was unhappy and was going to resign.

‘I told my mum and dad and my brother.

They told me to get it off
my chest and clear my conscience.

‘
After discussing the case with Special Constable Lucking, they went
to their senior officer and made a formal complaint.

She told investigators that within a few hours of the incident, she
told PC Mason: ‘That was out of order.

There is no need for it.

It’ll
only make matters worse because he (Mr Benn) is black and relations
between the police and the public are quite bad enough.

‘
He allegedly told her she had been ‘written out’ of the officers
notes about the van journey, which they had all written together with
a sergeant.

Special Constable Lucking said his notes, which he wrote with PCs
Mason, Larter and Toby Fletcher, were wrong.

They accused Mr Benn of trying to bite them during the journey
between Garratt Lane, Tooting, and Tooting police station, and made no
mention of PC Mason stamping on the suspect’s face.

He told investigators he had questioned the version they were
writing but had been met with ‘stares of disbelief’ from the others
and he was intimidated into writing down inaccurate notes.

WPC Christaforou said she had thought long and hard
before deciding to report her colleagues.

‘The life of a grass in a police station is no more pleasant than
the life of a grass anywhere else.

‘I received insults and cold-shouldering.

I transferred to another
station because of it.

‘
She denied a defence suggestion that there was ‘no way
in which these officers could have avoided coming into contact with Mr
Benn with their feet in the space available.

‘
The trial continues.

ENDS