A former military police officer has been paid almost £9,000 in damages by Greater Manchester Police after being locked in custody for almost 12 hours.
Paul Nugent, 62, was arrested following a domestic dispute January 2020. He had been involved in a row with a woman at his Heywood home when Greater Manchester Police were called.
The security consultant claimed he was repeatedly assaulted by the woman, but later said he found out by using a ‘subject access request’ (SAR) procedure to access police reports that he had been identified as ‘a high-risk abuse perpetrator’ by a police officer he had never met.
He launched a civil action against the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police and a hearing took place in May this year when Judge Khan at Manchester Civil Court allowed his claim for unlawful arrest and false imprisonment, awarding him £8,746.52 in compensation and costs of £35,000 against GMP.
At a separate hearing a month later, GMP requested leave to appeal the ruling, but it was refused.
However, the Chief Constable has now applied to the High Court in a bid to get Judge Khan’s decision overturned. A date has yet to be fixed for that hearing.
Mr Nugent has told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that he was driven to the brink of suicide as a result of allegations that he sexually assaulted the woman over an eight-month period.
However, for five of those eight months, Mr Nugent says he was working in Bulgaria as a health and safety officer for a Burnley-based company.
Mr Nugent he claims that evidence of his absence from the country, which he offered to Rochdale GMP’s investigators, was not compiled.
He claims that on three occasions between May 2019 and March 2021, police attempted to bring charges for sexual assault against him, but in each case, the Crown Prosecution Service said there was no evidence to charge him.
“As of today, I have never been charged, cautioned, or warned by the police for any crime whatsoever,” said Mr Nugent.
Mr Nugent says the cost of trying to clear his name from the ‘stigma’ of being accused of sexual assault, including hiring a private investigator, has cost him more than £20,000.
“Not one piece of evidence I pointed the police to in order to establish my innocence was investigated by Rochdale GMP,” Mr Nugent said.
“How they can arrest someone and then not investigate their evidence and just send them away is so very wrong. I am suffering from the stigma of being arrested for such an offence.
“Police have destroyed my whole life because they failed to do their job correctly. Their treatment of me has left me feeling I can no longer trust them.”
Mr Nugent has undergone counselling for anxiety, fear and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and spoke of his ‘darkest moments’ when he contemplated taking his own life.
He claims that as well as spending years attempting to clear his name amid the ‘stigma’ of being a rape suspect, he told police about medical evidence which showed he suffers from Peyronies Disease, which he says renders him physically incapable of rape.
The former Royal Military Police officer has served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. During his career, he was attached to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and worked in numerous British embassies worldwide.
GMP declined to comment, but confirmed the Force is appealing to the High Court.
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