When it comes to police brutality, we still have a long way to go

Editorial: There’s no question our forces have a difficult and dangerous job – but the incident at Manchester airport was inexcusable

Before the scenes in the widely viewed video took place, three officers were injured in serious violence (Twitter)

There is a risk in interpreting video clips of apparently dramatic incidents – that they tell only part of the story. This would appear to be true in the case of the video of a Greater Manchester Police (GMP) officer kicking and stamping on the head of a man in Manchester airport on Tuesday night.

Before the scenes in the widely viewed video took place, three officers were injured in serious violence. According to Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, a dispute on an incoming flight led to an “altercation” in the arrivals hall. The police were called and clearly had some difficulty restoring order. GMP say that the three officers needed hospital treatment.

Needless to say, the police have a stressful and dangerous job, and it is impossible to get everything right when dealing with a violent and unpredictable situation.

That said, the scenes recorded by mobile phone cameras were unacceptable. Whatever provocation there might have been “off stage”, as it were, there can be no excuse for a police officer kicking someone in the head as they lie, unarmed and defenceless, on the floor.

If there was provocation beforehand, it is part of the job of a police officer not to be provoked by it.

This was acknowledged, in effect, by GMP, who suspended an officer after reviewing the footage. This was the right response, and it was right that the force acted quickly and referred the incident to the Independent Office for Police Conduct for investigation.

It should now be for that investigation to try to put together a full account of what actually happened in Manchester airport on Tuesday, and to try to ensure that lessons are learnt. However, it is possible to observe, without prejudice to that investigation, that all is not well with the state of Britain’s police forces.

GMP only came out of “special measures” two years ago. The force changed its leadership and was required to undertake remedial action after it failed to record a fifth of all reported crimes in 2020. Since then, its performance has improved markedly, but the force still has some way to go to earn the trust of the people it serves.

It is worth noting that the demonstration outside Rochdale police station on Wednesday night – held in support of the man in the video, who is from Rochdale – was peaceful. This was a justified response to a perceived injustice.

What Rochdale and the rest of Greater Manchester do not need, therefore, is the intervention of politicians such as Lee Anderson, the Reform UK MP for Ashfield, who said: “The vast majority of decent Brits would applaud this type of policing. We are sick of the namby-pamby approach. Time to back our boys in blue.”

We are confident that Mr Anderson does not speak for a majority of the British people, let alone “the vast majority”. Most people in Britain are well aware of how hard policing is, but they want the police to redouble their efforts to learn from unfortunate episodes in which the line is crossed into brutality.