“I make the decision which I come to on the basis of the uncontroverted evidence that no instruction or demonstration was given to those who were placed at the various points on the clock face as to the various ways in which it would be appropriate to interact with each other and with the bad man in the middle.”
“Q. And maybe one-on-one it would be fine, but here you were adding an additional element of danger because you had gone from one person to four officers potentially dealing with this particular assailant, and there is the scope, is there not, for there to be confusion between those officers if the situation is not controlled and managed effectively, and those officers do not really know what they are doing? A. With regards to this situation here, scenarios generally speaking are in a controlled environment, but you do not give them specific instructions … The reason for that is that I cannot relate what an aggressor would do in a given situation and where an officer particularly might be. If one officer gets thrown with -- say the aggressor throws him away with one arm, that officer might be in a completely [different] position to how I would actually describe it to him or to her, so you can’t be too prescriptive about a scenario.”
“That risk, however, still has to be balanced against the other matters to which we have referred in determining whether or not the Prison Service failed to exercise reasonable care. It is true, as was submitted on the reclaimer’s behalf, that an instruction to prohibit the use on a stairway of heavy missiles, such as that which struck the reclaimer, could have been given without trouble or expense. However, the whole purpose of the exercise was to give to the trainees realistic experience of the conditions with which they might be faced in a genuine riot, and there was ample evidence to indicate that the use of heavy missiles was required for that purpose. There was also evidence which strongly indicated that an essential part of the training involved the use of stairs so as to simulate a situation in which officers would have to climb a prison stairway while maintaining cover.”
“I am satisfied that considerable care was put into the formulation of the course. The issue of the volume of force was addressed, as was the question of technique, to a substantial if not total extent. I recognise that realism, so far as it could be reasonably achieved, was essential, and that therefore what had to be balanced was the sufficient degree of force to create a realistic position against the risk that excessive force might cause an excessive injury.”
“If no instructions are given, there is a risk of confusion and injury.”
“Q. Every time you introduce one of these elements of aggression -- one officer, two officers, three officers or four officers -- you are bringing into the scenario something that had not been covered, had not been taught, had not even been discussed. And that in itself, does it not, lead to the potential for confusion? A. No, I disagree. Q. All right, does it not lead to the potential for exposing the participants of that scenario to harm because they do not really know what they are doing?”
“Judge: The right knee was either broken or certainly sufficiently damaged to be in immediate need of repair. I would have thought that, as anybody knows, it is a regular affliction of footballers to suffer an injury of that character. It happens when the body, as it were, north of the knee -- that is to say, the thigh and the torso -- move, and for some reason the foot does not? Mr Skelt: Yes. Judge: Are we agreed about that? Mr Skelt: That is my layman’s understanding. Judge: Yes, yes. I mean, it is straightforward mechanics, I would have thought. Mr Skelt: Yes.”
“Q. Right. That sounds, does it not, like somebody is trying to do what they had been told to do in the morning, given the description you have given us of the twisting and down technique that people had been practising? A. Yes.”