A police officer who punched a 16-year-old boy in the face “repeatedly” as he was being taken to a London hospital with mental health problems has been found guilty of assault.
According to prosecutors, on November 13, 2023, Metropolitan Police officer Sevda Gonen “striked the boy multiple times in the face with an open palm,” Judge Briony Clarke The officer was found guilty of assault after “she allowed her frustration to get the best of her”.
Gonen, 33, from Leytonstone, London, and another Metropolitan Police constable Stuart Price, 35, were also found guilty of unlawful searches at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday. , equivalent to the crime of assault.
Police were initially called after the boy was reportedly acting aggressively and violently toward a mental health worker who was trying to conduct an assessment at his home address.
The court heard that cameras in the police car captured a conversation as officers made their way to the boy’s home, in which Gonen called him a “f**king little bastard”.
“He’s such an idiot,” Price said of the boy, to which his colleague responded, “I’m sick of him.”
Gonen apologized for his remarks on Thursday and told the court the conversation was “in the heat of the moment.”
Prosecutor Lyndon Harris said Gonen “particularly disliked” the boy and “left the impression that he was wasting their time by pretending to have some kind of mental illness”.
On arriving at the address, Price, from Gamlingey, Cambridgeshire, offered to take the boy to hospital in a police car because the boy’s mother told police she feared for her son’s welfare.
The court heard footage from the police car showed the boy lighting up a cigarette and starting to smoke as the police car was being taken to hospital.
Gonen then climbed into a cage in the back of the car and pushed the boy into a corner, which prosecutors said was legal. After a struggle, the boy was handcuffed but not arrested.
In a use-of-force form Price later filled out, the officer said the boy “actively resisted Gonen’s attempts to take his cigarettes.” Gonen wrote in her form that the boy provided “aggressive resistance.” .
Gonen said the boy’s smoking “paniced” her because it posed a “huge safety risk”, adding that she suffered from asthma and smoking in the car was a “criminal damage”.
Police feared he might have something in his pockets and searched the boy.
Prosecutors said the search was illegal because the boy had not yet been arrested.
Price told the court the search was to “prevent further offences”.
Judge Clark said she was satisfied the search was unlawful, adding that police carried out the search “without regard to what powers they had, or even whether they had any powers at all”.
Gonen and Price will be sentenced on January 24.