PSNI officer cleared of racist allegation

The taxi driver told police in May last year that the customer had damaged his glasses after refusing to pay, but the customer told police that he had been assaulted by the taxi driver.

The taxi driver later made a complaint to the Police Ombudsman’s Office alleging that the investigating police officer had refused to investigate his allegation but had pursued the customer’s report about him.

An Ombudsman investigator found that a Community Resolution Notice to settle the matter had fell apart and the officer then investigated the allegations by both parties.

The investigator also found the investigation to have been “effective and timely”, and said the police officer had treated both parties fairly.

She also found no evidence to substantiate the taxi driver’s allegations that the officer had failed to respond quickly enough to his text messages, and had not referred him to Victim Support.

She also did not uphold the complaint that the officer had tried to intimidate or unnerve the taxi driver by telling him that another officer wanted to speak to him about an unrelated incident. S

he described as “reasonable” the officer’s explanation that she did so to avoid the driver having to return to the police station on another occasion.