{"id":21263,"date":"2025-01-17T19:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T19:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/swansea-police-officer-rhodri-davies-sacked-for-hitting-man\/"},"modified":"2025-01-17T19:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T19:36:10","slug":"swansea-police-officer-rhodri-davies-sacked-for-hitting-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/swansea-police-officer-rhodri-davies-sacked-for-hitting-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Swansea police officer Rhodri Davies sacked for hitting man"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"SubmittedSubmitted photo<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Tariq Evans had been arrested and taken to Swansea Central police station when he was “taken down” by Sgt Rhodri Davies<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A police sergeant who punched a man while he was in a cell has been sacked for gross misconduct.<\/p>\n

Rhodri Davies, 45, of South Wales Police, used unnecessary, disproportionate and unreasonable force against Tariq Evans in October 2022.<\/p>\n

Mr Davies, a former boxer, was the duty custody sergeant when Mr Evans was brought to Swansea Central police station.<\/p>\n

Mr Evans was handcuffed when he was swung to the floor and then struck by Mr Davies, who also used a “dangerous” restraint on his neck.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The panel found Mr Davies “had the strength to contain Mr Evans” and the takedown and subsequent strikes were unlawful.<\/p>\n

His actions were described as “deplorable” by a disciplinary panel hearing at Bridgend and he was dismissed without notice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Another officer, PC Jack Williams, was jailed in September 2023<\/a> for assaulting Mr Evans in a police van before he was taken to the station.<\/p>\n

Colin Banham, representing Mr Davies, said his client was a “very popular, well-liked and trusted police officer” who had given “20 years of good service to the public” and gone “above and beyond the call of duty” in his career.<\/p>\n

Mr Banham described the incident as “extremely isolated and out of character” adding it was a “flashpoint in an otherwise exemplary career”.<\/p>\n

Christopher Mckay, the disciplinary panel’s chairman, said a police station was meant to be a safe place for anyone and called Mr Evans’ treatment at the hands of Mr Davies “deplorable”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Sarah-Lee<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Sarah-Lee Evans said her son Tariq Evans had been traumatised by the incident<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Mr Evans’ mother Sarah-Lee Evans was “delighted” with the outcome following the 10-day hearing.<\/p>\n

She said: “My son’s a big lad but has ADHD and possible autism which is why he responded the way he did at the time.<\/p>\n

“He’s been left traumatised by this. He’s found it difficult to hold down jobs and relationships and is being supported by our local mental health team.<\/p>\n

“Sgt Davies was an experienced officer and custody suites are heated places, he should have dealt with this better and I’m glad he’ll no longer be in that position.”<\/p>\n

She said her son was considering whether to take further action against South Wales Police.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Submitted photo Tariq Evans had been arrested and taken to Swansea Central police station when he was “taken down” by Sgt Rhodri Davies A police sergeant who punched a man while he was in a cell has been sacked for gross misconduct. Rhodri Davies, 45, of South Wales Police, used unnecessary, disproportionate and unreasonable force […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[5256,7835,417,1456,599,8046,5499,4518],"class_list":["post-21263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wales","tag-davies","tag-hitting","tag-man","tag-officer","tag-police","tag-rhodri","tag-sacked","tag-swansea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21265,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21263\/revisions\/21265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}