The Met has been forced to make an extraordinary public apology to a mother wrongly arrested and accused of assaulting an officer as bailiffs attempted to clamp her husband's car.

Detective sergeant Nick Westwood made the "humbling" apology to Alison Richardson in front of scores of her fellow churchgoers over the "upset and distress" caused when she was arrested in 2008.

Mrs Richardson was taken into custody by as many as eight officers after she and her church elder husband Clive called them because bailiffs were wrongly attempting to clamp their car.

When police arrived at the family home in Greenwich, they unlawfully barged their way into the property, roughly handled the couple and arrested Mrs Richardson.

A woman officer subsequently claimed that she had been punched in the face by Mrs Richardson.
Mrs Richardson was held in a police station for eight hours, then later taken to court and sentenced to 150 hours of community service.

But she appealed against the sentence and after serving 90 hours of her community service was completely exonerated by a judge.

She said: "I felt that the apology was humble and genuine. The apology was necessary because of the humiliation, disgrace and embarrassment that I experienced when I was arrested, charged, tried and convicted of assaulting a police officer, a false allegation of a crime that I had clearly not committed.

"The public apology helps to heal the wounds and also to close this traumatic chapter, so that I can move forward with my family and get on with my life."

After her conviction Mrs Richardson lost her criminal records bureau accreditation and had to step down from her role in her local Greenwich Seventh-day Adventist church office.

But following her successful appeal, the police took the unusual step of agreeing to make a public apology in front of Mrs Richardson, her family and her entire church congregation.

Saying he wanted to make an "apology on behalf of the Met", DS Westwood, of the Met's Professional Standards Department, told the congregation: "It is only right and proper that where we make mistakes and when we make errors that we are willing to apologise and put those mistakes right.

Some time ago police attended the Richardsons' home address. There were bailiffs there and, in short, police officers entered the address when they didn't have any power to do so... the result was that Alison was arrested.

"Alison was then taken to court and convicted of an offence. She then appealed and was quite rightly found to have committed no crime.

"She then decided to take matters further and began action against the police. We decided that quite clearly in this case the officers had made an error."

In the apology, which has been posted on YouTube, the officer goes on: "We decided that an apology had to be part of any agreement to settle this matter between us. It has been a humbling experience to come to the church today.

I hope that this apology goes some way to putting to rest formally and finally the upset and distress that the Richardsons as a family have had."

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