Footage shows the shocking moment a police sergeant used excessive force to detain a woman suffering from PTSD.
The video shows Sergeant Simon Lythgoe, also a powerlifting champion, aggressively grabbing the woman, a known victim of domestic abuse.
In the clip, she can be heard to scream at him: ‘Don’t f****** use force against me […] Don’t f****** use force […] Oww, oww, oww.’
Sgt Lythgoe then tells the woman he will not tolerate violence against staff, to which she responds: ‘I am not trying to be violent. I have not tried to be violent towards you.’
A panel at a recent misconduct hearing in Eastleigh, Hampshire, heard Sgt Lythgoe had access to records informing police the woman had previously been in an abusive relationship and suffered from depression due to the death of her daughter exactly one year before the arrest.
A further clip, shown to the panel, also showed Sgt Lythgoe, who previously broke a world bench pressing record, emerging from behind his desk to grab a male detainee by the neck.
The officer then pressed the detainee to the ground for having ‘aggressively’ looked at another member of the force.
In it, Sgt Lythgoe is heard to say: ‘Do you understand that I am in charge? If you don’t hear what I say there will be consequences.’
He then adds the detainee should ‘shut up and stand up’, further describing him as ‘not f****** hard.’
Sgt Lythgoe was subsequently found guilty of two counts of using unnecessary, unreasonable and disproportionate force, given the circumstances.
He was also dismissed from police work after 25 years on the job.
Matthew Holdcroft, prosecuting, told the recent hearing of Sgt Lythgoe’s comments during the incidents: ‘That wasn’t the language of a caring and compassionate custody sergeant. That is the language of control and oppression.
‘It is a simple language of a bully and a bully who is responsible for the welfare of the detained person. A bully who has total control of the environment in which they are operating.’
Concerning the incident involving the woman, Mr Holdcroft said: ‘She has PTSD. She had been subject to years of physical abuse in a previous relationship.
‘This is important because that is a trigger and more importantly, she had depression and anxiety because of the death of her daughter who had died one year before the date of her arrest.’
He went on: ‘It is obvious from the moment the sergeant walked into that cell that he was the trigger.
‘He is the flame that lit the fire and he simply wasn’t meant to be there.’
At the conclusion of Sgt Lythgoe’s case, deputy chief constable of Hampshire Police, Sam de Reya, said: ‘The panel has concluded the physical actions of Sgt Lythgoe were simply inexcusable.
‘On behalf of the force, I would like to apologise to the victims in this case and thank the colleague who stepped forward to challenge and report behaviour.’
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