A policeman 'stamped on me'

THE SHORT stroll from his London flat to the phone box around the corner was one that Efe Eghobamien, a young Nigerian-born student, had made many times before.

But the sight of armed police officers in flak jackets advancing down the middle of the road persuaded him that on this occasion the call could wait. Anxious to avoid the shooting which looked likely to start at any moment, he says, he turned to retrace his steps.

Seconds later he was lying on the ground in agony with a smashed ankle. Then one of the armed officers stamped on his head, he says. Now, the 22-year- old economics undergraduate is accusing Metropolitan Police marksmen of having recklessly mistaken him for a wanted criminal.

Mr Eghobamien says the police gave him no chance to prove his innocence and made no proper effort to establish his identity. Later that evening in hospital, where he was taken in handcuffs for surgery, 'a detective said he had just found out I had nothing to do with the case and that I was no longer under arrest'.

He recalls the officer giving his name and telephone number, offering to contact his next of kin and then vanishing. Mr Eghobamien is considering suing the police.

According to the police version of events on 30 April in Lavender Hill, Battersea, Mr Eghobamien suffered his injuries falling down a flight of steps while running away from police after their warning shouts.

At about 7.30pm that day, an armed police squad was searching for Ralston Otto, 33, an escaped robber with convictions for rape and manslaughter, said to be one of Britain's most wanted men.

Mr Eghobamien says he immediately noticed the police vehicles to left and right blocking off a section of road as he entered Lavender Hill. A Land Rover, flanked by rifle-carrying policemen, was moving down the highway.

As he walked back down a flight of steps to his road, he says he became aware that the police were shouting at him to lie down. 'I was at the bottom of the steps. Someone pushed me to lie down. I was aware of an excruciating pain in my right ankle.

'One of the armed policemen stamped on my head and kept his foot there for a while. My hands were handcuffed behind my back.'

He remembers lying in severe pain on the floor of a police van while there was a discussion about whether he should go to hospital or the police station. His right foot was sticking out from his smashed ankle at right angles to its normal position. An ambulanceman told him the foot might have to be amputated and advised the police to take him to St George's Hospital, Tooting. The ankle was plated and screwed the next day under general anaesthetic.

Mr Eghobamien, who has just completed his second year at London Guildhall University, says he is angered and saddened. 'If things like that can happen here, it's no different from the Third World. I don't believe that a special squad like that in one of the best forces in the world should act like this.'

Superintendent Roy Sutherland, of Battersea police, said a pending inquiry into the incident and the possibility of a legal claim by Mr Eghobamien prevented a detailed response at this stage. But he said: 'We would refute strongly the circumstances in which the gentleman said he received his injuries. We would refute strongly the suggestion that this man's head was trodden on.'

Mr Sutherland said Mr Eghobamien ran down the steps and had fallen in the process.

'The police operation was mounted lawfully and quite properly to protect the public as well as ourselves.'

Otto, who had escaped from the Mount prison, Hemel Hempstead, in November, was captured in west London on 25 May.

A second black man arrested in error in the same operation, Brian Haseley, 27, of North Street, Clapham, has lodged an official complaint of assault against the police.

Mr Haseley claims a police officer struck him on the forehead with a rifle butt.

(Photograph omitted)