Complaint of excessive force used during restraint - Cheshire Constabulary, September 2017

On 1 September 2017 Cheshire Constabulary officers restrained a woman who was an in-patient at a psychiatric unit by holding her arms, at one point with the help of a support worker. During the restraint the woman struggled and complained of pain in her left arm, saying that it was broken. The woman was taken to hospital, where an X-ray showed that she had sustained a fracture to a small bone in the region of her left inner elbow. The woman subsequently made a complaint about her arm being broken during the restraint.

During the investigation our investigators reviewed local and national policies and procedures, interviewed the officer, and obtained statements from several witnesses to the restraint. We were unable to interview the woman.

One of the officers had considered other options, initially using officer presence and attempts to verbally de-escalate, but the situation escalated rapidly. The evidence indicated that the second officer and support worker restrained the woman in order to prevent a perceived assault on the other officer, who then took over the arm restraint. We found no evidence to show that the officer acted in a manner outside of their training when restraining the woman. An independent medical expert was unable to say whether the break was caused by the restraint alone, or by the woman resisting.

Based on the evidence available we found no indication that any person serving with the police may have behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings, or had committed a criminal offence.