Sacked after two-year legal battle, the PC who made monkey noises at a black suspect

PC Wayne Bell, 33, put his hands under his arms to mimic an ape as the man stood in a 'holding cage' at a police station where officers investigated the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence.

He called Anthony Housden, then 20, a badly-behaved chimp.

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The decision to fire the PC is the final chapter of an extraordinary two-year saga which has included a failed prosecution, a misconduct panel, two police reviews and a High Court challenge.

Scotland Yard will now hope to draw a line under an incident which has been hugely embarrassing for a force which has spent millions on anti-racism measures.

Mr Housden was arrested after an incident on a train in July 2005 and taken to Plumstead police station in south London.

He was placed in a holding cage for about half an hour and became extremely abusive.

During the exchange PC Bell, an officer for eight years, started making monkey impressions.

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He later told a court trying him on a charge of racially-aggravated behaviour: 'I was trying to illustrate his behaviour in the cage.

'I made no reference to his ethnicity. I didn't know if he was black or white.

'I briefly mimicked the posture of a monkey.

PC Bell claimed colleagues regularly called him a 'northern monkey' because he came from Hartlepool.

He said: 'I get called it all the time. I have had it written on my locker. I didn't think for a second it might be offensive.'

PC Bell was cleared by Bow magistrates' court in East London in March 2006 after evidence that he was several feet away from the cage and could not tell Mr Housden's race.

After the case, PC Bell and PC Neil Wakeling, who had failed to report his colleague, were 'required to resign' from the force - police language for being sacked.

But they took their case to a review by Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman.

In October 2006 PC Bell, who has been suspended on full pay, was reinstated and fined after he was found guilty of only one of three disciplinary charges.

PC Wakeling was also reinstated after the review found he had no case to answer.

The IPCC, supported by Scotland Yard, won a High Court challenge to quash Mr Hayman's decision but the two officers applied for another review.

Yesterday the Independent Police Complaints Commission said PC Bell had been 'required to resign' while PC Wakeling was reprimanded and fined 13 days pay.

IPCC Commissioner Mehmuda Mian Pritchard said: 'We welcome the decision. There is no place for racism in the police service.'

Hartlepool has been associated with monkeys since its inhabitants allegedly hanged a shipwrecked monkey during the Napoleonic war, believing it to be a French spy.

In 2002 a man who wore a monkey suit as the local football club's mascot - H'Angus - was elected mayor.