A FORMER Essex Police constable's actions have been determined as gross misconduct, following an incident in which he struck a vulnerable 17-year-old girl in the head at a hospital while she was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

The presiding panel established last month that ex-constable Toby Bailey, who resigned from the force on January 4, displayed conduct during the incident on May 17, 2022, which breached the Police Standards of Professional Behaviour in the areas of use of force, discreditable conduct and equality and diversity.

Following a hearing which began on January 11 and was held in four sessions, panel chair Andrew Hearn, joined by Police Superintendent Darren Deex and Mr Richard Gutowski, determined that due to the seriousness of the allegations, Bailey would have been dismissed from the force had he remained a serving officer.

The complainant referred to only as Miss A, first encountered Bailey at Basildon Hospital on the night of May 17, 2022, having been transferred from custody at a police station having been detained under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act, giving police emergency powers to safeguard a person who may be a risk to themselves or the public. She had expressed an intention to take her own life upon release and told officers that she had self-harmed the previous day.

At the time of the incident, Miss A was a 17-year-old 'cared-for' child and classed as 'vulnerable' by local authorities.

However, Bailey maintained that he was not made aware of Miss A's age or vulnerability status before their interaction, despite attending the scene alongside Acting Police Sergeant Amy Butler, who had encountered Miss A on a number of previous occasions.

Evidence from body-worn footage taken from another attending officer, PC Chloe Layley, was played at the hearing on January 11 and showed PC Bailey placing handcuffs on Miss A's wrists before he and PS Butler physically escorted her to the designated 'Section 136 room', each holding one of her arms.

Once inside the 136 room, Miss A was pushed down into a chair by the police officers, with PC Bailey continuing to hold onto the handcuffs. PC Layley and another officer, PC Burwood, who was just weeks into completing her police tutorship at the time of the incident, were also present in the room. After a matter of seconds, during which Miss A appeared to be attempting to free herself from the officers' grip, she was dealt a blow to the temple area on her left side by Bailey in what is known within the force as an 'elbow strike'.

Bailey said that he had acted in self-defence as he held a belief that Miss A was going to bite him, claiming that he had seen Miss A bare her teeth and move her head towards his hands with which he was holding the central bar of the handcuffs placed around her wrists.

However, calling upon the opinions of three experts in the use of force on January 29, Ms Joanne Caffrey from the Appropriate Authority (AA), an experienced former police officer, gave a number of reasons for why Bailey's strike to Miss A amounted to gross misconduct. She acknowledged that Miss A's behaviour towards attending officers – verbal abuse and swearing – was "inappropriate", but not "unusual or extreme" with regards to what officers are expected to deal with.

Ms Caffrey called Bailey's and PS Butler's communication style "antagonistic", and suggested that it would have been advisable to approach Miss A in a calmer manner. This could have included using a low tone of voice and adjusting body language and tone accordingly. The overriding objective, she said, should always be to prioritise the care of the detainee, especially in the cases of vulnerable children or young people.

She also noted that there is no mandate which requires a person detained under the MHA to remain in a designated room, and that personal wishes should prevail. It is also standard practice to refrain from using restraints or handcuffs on a mentally vulnerable person unless absolutely necessary, and to remove them at the earliest opportunity once policing objectives have been achieved. Ms Caffrey did not believe Miss A's behaviour to be severe enough to warrant the use of handcuffs.

She added that another viable option could have been for Bailey to push Miss A away from him rather than execute a strike.

After additionally considering the opinions of Mr Robert Knight from the AA and Mr Kenneth Carvalho, on behalf of Bailey having himself served as a police officer for over 36 years, the panel surmised that it found "the evidence given by Ms Caffrey both in her report and orally to have been the most persuasive".

In the determination document it continued: "In relation to Mr Carvalho, with the greatest of respect to him, the panel was concerned that during his oral evidence he appeared on several occasions reluctant to depart from an already stated view although seemingly unable to give any persuasive reason for not doing so, sometimes only making a concession when pressed by the panel."

When called to give evidence on January 31, Bailey, dressed in a dark blue suit and black tie, submitted repeatedly that he believed his behaviour to be "firm but fair". He and his solicitor Ms Shade Abiodun requested that the panel acknowledge his good character, having served for over 20 years in the British Army with a clean record and completing tours in Kosovo, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan before retiring and joining Essex Police in 2017.

Regarding his elbow strike against Miss A, he said: "I don't use force… I'm not an officer who enjoys or gets off on it.

"It was a proportionate, spontaneous reaction to what I thought was going to be an assault."

Bailey said that the equipment he had on his person at the time – a taser, extendable baton and CS gas – would have been "wholly inappropriate" to use to subdue Miss A despite having described her demeanour as "volatile" when he encountered her in the hospital's A&E department. He added that he believed his fellow attending officers, in particular PS Butler, could have also been "more vocal" in supporting him as the scenario unfolded.

Barrister for the AA Mr Stephen Morley suggested that Bailey's account was a fabrication and that the ex-officer had "just lost it" in a "moment of madness", insisting that he believed Miss A had attempted to bite him in order to mitigate an action which he recognised had been "stupid".

In response, Bailey said: "I left that hospital confident that I had used force which was proportionate and appropriate.

"I know what I saw, I have no cause to lie".

Delivering its determination via video link on Thursday, February 1, the panel concluded that Bailey's actions had constituted gross misconduct and that it considered his behaviour to be "neither necessary, reasonable nor appropriate".

At the end of the determination, Mr Hearn wrote: "In reaching its conclusions the panel reminded itself of the need to protect public confidence in, and the maintenance of the reputation of, the Police Service, the need to maintain high professional standards and the need to protect the public and officers and staff by preventing similar misconduct in the future."