Merseyside Police trio sentenced for assault cover-up

The officers were found guilty of perverting the course of justice

Two Merseyside Police officers have been jailed and another has received a suspended sentence after lying to cover up an assault by a colleague.

Darren McIntyre assaulted Mark Bamber after being called to his home in 2019.

His colleagues Laura Grant, 36, and Lauren Buchanan-Lloyd, 26, turned off their body-worn cameras while the assault took place.

The pair and another colleague Garrie Burke, 44, were convicted of perverting the course of justice.

Burke, of Maghull, and Grant, of Waterloo, were both jailed at Liverpool Crown Court for 15 months.

Buchanan-Lloyd, of Higher Bebington, who had been a police constable for five weeks at the time, was given a nine-month sentence, suspended for 18 months for the same offence.

The court heard the three officers provided false statements after McIntyre repeatedly punched Mr Bamber "in temper and in anger" after being called to the property in Cherry Road, Ainsdale, Sefton, in June 2019.

Judge David Aubrey QC said Grant told Buchanan-Lloyd, whom she was tutoring, to say the batteries had died after turning off their cameras.

"None of you had attached body-worn footage to your statements," he said, adding: "Yours, Garrie Burke, had not been activated."

'No moral compass'

The officers described Mr Bamber as being drunk and said he moved his head towards McIntyre as if to headbutt him, the court was told.

In a victim personal statement, Mr Bamber, who suffered minor injuries and was arrested following the attack, said: "I shudder to think what would have happened if the video footage had not been revealed."

Sentencing Burke and Grant, the judge said the officers breached the public's trust and "in doing so betrayed all their honest colleagues".

Sentencing Buchanan-Lloyd, the judge said: "You found yourself attached to three officers who, in my judgment, in fact had no moral compass or integrity."

All four officers are also due to face internal misconduct proceedings.

McIntyre, 47, of Southport, was due to be sentenced for assault occasioning actual bodily harm and perverting the course of justice along with his colleagues but the court was told he had been admitted to hospital and his sentencing was adjourned to July.

Deputy Chief Constable Ian Critchley has since apologised to the victim and said the defendants' actions had undermined the good work of their colleagues.

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