Taken from Monday April 6th 2009 edition of the buisness and finance section of the Metro.

why not one of those mistreated by the Met didn't take this all the way through the courts to prove the Met are violent thugs who fit people up?

that the police are still funding campaigners nicely. Good work Met, you may have controlled one day but these funds will help the activists fight you and your corporate masters on a daily basis. See you on the streets and thanks for the funding!

It's because the civil procedure rules, which apply to all cases in the county court, expect people to aim to settle the dispute before it gets to a full court trial. This does make sense for ordinary disputes with no political element. The civil courts are not set up to be able to investigate police procedure and policy, so if a case did go to a full hearing, all the court would look at is whether the police did in fact commit the civil tort of assault or false imprisonment and decide, after looking at previous similar cases, how much compensation to award the person who was assaulted. The rules don't allow the court to make political judgements about the behaviour of the police. Different judges might have their own opinions about the police, or about protestors for that matter, but they can't impose huge fines on the police because they particularly disapprove of their behaviour unless there is a previous appeal case which sets a precedent for them to impose that level of fine.

The other problem is, going to a full court hearing is always a risk because there's no guarantee that you will win. Also, it's not automatic that you would get costs awarded against the police. Normally, the loser pays the winner's legal costs, but this isn't compulsory on the court. If the judge thinks you could have settled the case for a decent amount of compo without going to a full trial, he could decide to award some of the police's legal costs against you even if you win the case. So, you could get awarded compensation but have to pay some of it back to the fuzz for their legal fees. Personally, I'd find that a bit galling. I'd rather do them for compo, even if I didn't get an admission they were at fault. If it gets expensive enough for them, they'll have to think about improving their methods. They're not going to keep assaulting demonstrators if the compo they subsequently have to pay out looks like becoming high enough to bankrupt the force.

Pinkolady is almost right. If you tell them where to stick their offer and take the case to court, you're bringing a civil action for damages. "Fines" don't come into it. Fines result from criminal cases, not civil ones, and the state gets the money. If you are awarded damages in a civil case YOU get the money.

The problem is that if the Defendant (that's the cops in this case) has made you an offer to settle which you refuse and the amount of damages awarded in the end is less than the offer, then you are likely to be ordered to pay the costs, or at least part of them. They could be even more than the damages in some cases. Awarding damages of less than the offer is what a bastard-type judge is likely to do. You might then appeal against the amount if it is well out of line, but that's more costs if you don't succeed, as well as more delay. All courts are casinos, and casinos are always rigged in favour of "the house".

Civil judges, coming mostly from protected middle-class backgrounds, have little experience of the police and their ways and are more likely to believe them, compared with criminal judges who know the filth lie in their teeth all the time (whether they admit it or not). Guess what; the judiciary in the civil courts may not, in general, be our best friends.