David Rogerson is an unpleasant, foul-mouthed bully, a view readily formed by most people viewing films of his interaction with Huddersfield businessman, Stephen Bradbury, outside of West Yorkshire Police’s prestigious divisional HQ at Havertop, near Featherstone.
It is also the view of at least two WYP colleagues who worked with him at Havertop and, having now retired, are relieved to be no longer in his orbit. But not, it must be said, Rogerson’s own Professional Standards Department, within WYP, or his staff association, the Police Federation. Or, indeed, the recently retired chief constable, Dee Collins. The latter, incredibly, signed off a promotion for Rogerson in the face of his odious conduct that could, and some argue should, have led to a criminal conviction.
On 18th June, 2015, Mr Bradbury had attended Havertop in order to gather information, including video footage and photographs for a forthcoming documentary with which he was concerned.
A short time after his arrival, he was approached by Sergeant Dale Wooffinden, and then surrounded by six other police officers (with nothing better to do), and asked to explain his presence outside the police station and his intentions. Mr Bradbury gave his explanation and produced a letter from Chief Constable Andy Trotter, of the Association of Chief Police Officers (now renamed the National Police Chiefs Council), as it related directly to members of the public and photography in and around police premises.
Sgt Wooffinden, and his restless posse, having read the letter, was satisfied with the explanation and allowed Mr Bradbury to go about his lawful business.
Soon afterwards, CCTV footage shows the arrival of Acting Inspector Rogerson, as he was then, before his subsequent promotion to substantive inspector, and a short interchange with Mr Bradbury, prior to the officer entering the secure staff car park, ended with Rogerson calling him “an arsehole”.
The police officer, is then captured on footage accompanying Detective Constable Lisa Redfern, emerging from the car park and walking towards Mr Bradbury. A plainly agitated Rogerson tells DC Redfern: “I’m going to arrest him“. He offers no explanation to his female colleague as to the suspicion of any offence. She, in turn, offers no challenge as to the lawfulness of such an action, or the likely consequences.
As Rogerson approached, Mr Bradbury says: “You are going to lock him up are you, is that what you said?”. He took out a hand-held digital camera in order to record what was happening. The police officer then claims that Mr Bradbury is “harassing him” before grabbing his camera, and then the lanyard attached to it, which was draped around his neck. An assault had clearly taken place, the camera had been damaged, and the officer was asked to stop. Rogerson ignored the request and proceeded to drag his victim towards the police station, falsely claiming he had been assaulted by Mr Bradbury.
At this point, Rogerson told Mr Bradbury he was under arrest, but released his grip on the camera and lanyard. He did not caution him, disclose the suspicion of any offence, or give any grounds for doing so. He simply fulfilled the promise he had made to his female accomplice a short while earlier.
At this point, DC Redfern intervenes but only, quite incredibly, to tell Mr Bradbury to “calm down”. She offered no challenge to her police colleague, as she is required to do under Police Regulations, and no protection to a member of the public subject to a pre-meditated, unprovoked verbal and physical attack. As a police officer she also should have known that the arrest was unlawful and there had been manifest breaches of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, 1984. Her later accounts, during the complaints process that followed, suggest she did not. She was entirely supportive of Rogerson’s actions.
Mr Bradbury attempted to explain the prior exchange with Sgt Wooffinden and when the three ‘combatants’ reached the foyer of the police station, Rogerson marched off after refusing to provide details of his name and collar number. It is not clear if he subsequently spoke to Sgt Wooffinden, or not. Mr Bradbury’s camera was damaged and he had suffered abrasions and soft tissue injury to his neck.
DC Redfern failed to respond at all when asked if Mr Bradbury was under arrest. A point she failed to mention in her later account. As a result, he left the police station voluntarily, if not a little shakily, and was never subsequently detained or questioned about the ‘arrest’ by the police. Ms Redfern did not offer any first aid or make any enquiries about his well-being, or fitness to travel home. Another police officer who was sat in a vehicle nearby, and had witnessed the events involving Rogerson, declined to give either his own details, or those of his male colleague. Similarly, he made no enquiries about Mr Bradbury’s welfare.
Shortly after the incident a complaint was submitted to WYP. It set out carefully, and comprehensively, the events that had taken place. The matters therein were not only supported by CCTV film obtained on Mr Bradbury’s Go-Pro camera, there were five cameras in the police station precincts that had captured the attack on Mr Bradbury and the events leading up to it.
After a delay of almost two months, the complaint was allocated to Sergeant Penny Morley of WYP’s notorious Professional Standards Department. This was a clear indication that the police were going to try to fudge the complaint and ensure that the six month limit for a prosecution of Rogerson was going to pass, whilst they prevaricated. Sgt Morley had, some years previously, been called out by a circuit judge, HHJ Peter Benson, following a trial in Bradford Crown Court during which she gave untruthful evidence. Taking the College of Policing‘s Code of Ethics as a guide, she should no longer be part of the police service, let alone sitting in judgment of other officers, after such a condemnatory judicial finding.
A decision was taken by Mr Bradbury, in conjunction with his police complaints advocate, Neil Wilby (the author of this article), to lay an information at Kirkless Magistrates Court. This is more commonly known as a private prosecution. The necessary documents, witness statement and copies of film and photographs, were filed at court on 14th December, 2015, just before the six month statutory limit expired. The allegations concerned assault and criminal damage.
West Yorkshire Police and the Police Federation were livid when they discovered that the Resident District Judge, Michael Fanning, had issued a Summons against Rogerson, in early January 2016, under Section 6 of the Prosecution of Offences Act, 1985. They did not believe that the threat to issue court proceedings, privately, against Rogerson would be carried through. It was the first of its kind in living memory of court staff at Huddesfield and Leeds.
A pre-trial review was held the following month in Huddersfield and the Federation sent Nick Terry, a partner with Burton Copeland solicitors in Manchester, to try and have the case dismissed. Even with support, by way of an email from the District Prosecutor of the Crown Prosecution Service, Malcolm Christy, on the morning of the hearing, the judge was unpersuaded by Mr Terry’s increasingly desperate arguments, and those of the CPS rendered by email, and the matter was set down for trial on 16th April, 2016. Mr Bradbury, having represented himself at the first hearing, then appointed a leading local solicitor advocate, Michael Sisson-Pell, to prosecute the case on his behalf.
Three days before the trial the CPS notified the court that they were taking over the prosecution for the sole purpose of discontinuing it. Mr Bradbury was not notified until the day before the hearing. The Deputy Head of CPS Yorkshire and Humber Region, Andrew Penhale, said that whilst the prosecution did not meet the public interest test, the evidential threshold was satisfied and there was a reasonable prospect of a conviction against Rogerson.
Smiles and handshakes all round at the police and Federation HQ in Wakefield, but Mr Bradbury was left with a £600 bill for legal fees (which Mr Sisson-Pell had very kindly reduced to the bare minimum) for which the CPS and the police steadfastly refused to reimburse Mr Bradbury.
The complaint that the CPS were ‘in thrall’ to WYP, and the Federation, did appear to have some merit. A review of the decision not to prosecute Rogerson also failed. As did Mr Bradbury’s entreaties to the CPS regional head, Gerry Wareham. Approached for comment about this article, Mr Wareham said: “Our job is to take over prosecutions like this one [Mr Bradbury’s] that have no merit”. Which flies in the face, completely, of everything the CPS has written and reported about the case previously. Not least that it met the evidential test and that a conviction was likely.
WYP’s PSD then dragged their heels for another two years before finalising the complaints against both Rogerson and Redfern. They, of course, found nothing wrong and both escaped any meaningful sanction. Rogerson was given words of advice after a misconduct hearing and, of course, promoted. Redfern’s alleged misdemeanours were dismissed out of hand. The misconduct hearing was, bizarrely, chaired by Inspector Richard Close, an officer who had acted adversely against Mr Bradbury several times over the past six years, including being a central player in a well-organised ambush and arrest outside police HQ in Wakefield. A malicious prosecution of Mr Bradbury followed, but it didn’t get beyond ‘half-time’ at the nearby Magistrates Court as District Judge Day threw the case out. Gerry Wareham is curiously silent on that CPS debacle.
Vigorous protests to Dee Collins, were, disgracefully, brushed aside in the face of the most compelling evidence against Close. Including the fact that Close had not seized relevant filmed and photographic evidence, including the clip embedded in this article and pictures of his injuries and the damaged camera. Or, obtained witness statements from either Mr Bradbury or Sgt Wooffinden. It was a classic West Yorkshire Police ‘cover-up’.
But the last word went to Mr Bradbury, via his solicitor Iain Gould of DPP Law in Bootle. Letters before claim were drawn up regarding this and a number of other incidents in which Mr Bradbury was adversely affected by the unlawful actions of West Yorkshire Police and he was awarded £13,750 in compensation. The out of court settlement that meant the police avoided having to air their dirty washing in public.
Two of the other cases that led to the compensation award are covered in a separate article on this site and can be read here.
The ambush of Mr Bradbury outside of police HQ and the subsequent shambles of an arrest, detention, investigation and prosecution is to be the subject of a further article on this website in the near future.
Page last updated: Thursday 25th April, 2019 at 1810 hours
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Photo credit: West Yorkshire Police In Action YouTube Channel
© Neil Wilby 2015-2019. Unauthorised use, or reproduction, of the material contained in this article, without permission from the author, is strictly prohibited. Extracts from, and links to, the article (or blog) may be used, provided that credit is given to Neil Wilby, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Neil Wilby Media 
I used to support the police, I do believe there are some genuine, well meaning members, but I have to say, it is difficult indeeed, to maintain that support, when one reads about instances such as this, and many more, that appear on YouTube. They are, and always have been a necessity evil, but need a major overhaul, as they do not seem to be fit for purpose!
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