Motorist ‘shaken’ after police threaten to give him ‘ticket for something’

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An innocent motorist has described being “shaken up” after being arrested by a police officer who threatened to smash his window and told him: “You’re getting a ticket for something.”

Dorset Police has said the officer will be “subject to management action” over the incident in Bournemouth, which the county’s Police and Crime Commissioner described as “concerning”.

Footage taken by the driver showed him being pulled over because the officer spotted his car was painted blue despite being registered as a black vehicle. The officer can be heard insisting that the driver – who does not have his documents – gets out of the car.

Drivers have seven days to produce these materials before it becomes an offence, but police can seize a vehicle if they believe the motorist does not own the proper licence or insurance.

“If you don’t open the door, I’m going to smash it,” the officer said, wielding a baton near the window.

The driver then stated that his vehicle’s roof was still black, which he claimed meant that was not obliged to notify the DVLA of the colour change.

“Right well I don’t know that, do I?” the officer can be heard responding, to which the driver said: “Well you’re a police officer mate, you’re supposed to know that.”

The officer then replied: “You’re getting a ticket for something.”

The driver eventually opened his door so that the officer could check the tint of his windows, at which point he asked the driver to step out of the car to check whether he had “had a beer”, pointing to a passenger’s can of Coca Cola, which the officer suggested may have vodka in it.

He then handcuffed the driver and said he was arresting him on suspicion of driving with no insurance or licence. During the handcuffing process, the driver can be heard referring to a medical device, saying: “Stop pulling that, that’s attached inside my arm.”

The officer responded: “Well I don’t know that, do I? You’ve got a major attitude.” He later told the motorist to “just be quiet”when asked under which law the arrest was being made.

Once inside the police car, the officer can be heard answering the driver’s claim that he had not been stopped once by police in the year since his car was painted blue, by saying: “Well you’re going to be stopped lots of times from now on.”

Dorset Police said its professional standards team had reviewed all of the footage of the arrest and events leading up to it, including from the officer’s body camera, in order to “assess the full picture”. 

The officer has not been suspended, but will be subject to “management action”, Dorset Police said in a statement, adding: “Although there are always alternative views to a situation such as this, the force acknowledges that there are issues to be addressed with regards to the way this interaction was managed.”

The motorist, who was de-arrested at the scene after the officer told him he was “perfectly innocent”, told BBC News that he believed the officer had “abused his powers”, saying: “I've always respected the police but this incident has definitely left me shaken up, and I no longer know who I can trust.”

He said he found the officer to be “extremely aggressive” and complained of being treated “like a naughty child”.

His footage of the arrest has since been viewed 400,000 times on Youtube.

Dorset’s Police and Crime Commissioner Martyn Underhill said that while there are “always two sides to a story”, he did find some of the issues in the video “concerning”, but stressed that it was not his job to “intervene and hold police to account until their processes are finished”.

Mr Underhill told the BBC that he used to renovate cars using spray paint “so can see how this argument happened”.

In a statement issued on Thursday afternoon, Dorset Police said it had received no formal complaint from the driver, but a “substantial number” of messages from the public, noting that these included both criticism and support for the officer. 

“We expect the highest standards of professionalism from all our officers and we will always carefully consider any occasions where the public feel as though our officers have not met those standards,” it said.