A police officer who knocked out part of a student’s front tooth with his riot shield during a demonstration against tuition fees faces jail after being convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Judge Jeffrey Pegden QC warned PC Andrew Ott, 36, that a custodial sentence “would be at the forefront of the court’s mind” after the jury delivered its verdict at Southwark crown court on Tuesday.



Ott was cleared of falsifying an account of the incident with colleagues and of perverting the course of justice.

Two other officers, also on duty at Parliament Square in London for the protest in December 2010, were cleared of perverting the course of justice for allegedly helping their colleague come up with a cover story for the incident.

During the trial the jury heard clips from a recording device carried by Ott in which he said he would “fucking batter” some of the protesters.

The court heard that after Ott knocked out part of the front tooth of William Horner with his riot shield he told the student: “Not me mate, you slipped on the metal fence.”

Prosecutors said the incident happened when Horner tried to escape from a police cordon in which protesters were “kettled”. Afterwards, they claimed, PC Calvin Lindsay, and PC Thomas Barnes, both 31, concocted a reason why Horner should be arrested, saying he had been threatening to damage a church. Horner was not arrested or charged following the incident.

The trial heard how the three officers had spent the day policing the large and occasionally violent student protest in central London, and by the evening were helping to keep some demonstrators contained within a “kettle”, or cordon.

During the day Ott had been recorded saying of protesters: “I’m going to fucking batter them,” the prosecutor Edmund Vickers told the court. At one point he said: “Boys, if you get a clout of that fucking geezer there ... you have a go, he has been a fucking nightmare,” and said he was “more covert” because he wasn’t wearing his police jacket and his identification number was “not well known”.

At about 8pm, the jury was told, Horner tried to escape the kettle by jumping over a security barrier. As he ran away the student was tackled by Ott, whose riot shield hit him in the face, breaking a front tooth. Ott told the court he had not aimed for Horner’s head, and the resulting injury was “unlucky”.

As Horner accused the officer of assaulting him, Ott could be heard replying: “Not me mate, you slipped on the metal fence”, before telling a fellow officer: “I knocked his tooth out you cunt”.

According to the prosecution, Ott then seemed concerned he had used excessive force, and was recorded saying: “Ideally I want him nicked, you know what I mean – for something – if he is here he is playing up anyway, he is right gobby.”

At this point, the court was told, Lindsay, who had come to the scene, told Ott: “I forgot to tell you what happened, as he has jumped over there he has said: ‘I’m going to fucking smash up that building.’” Ott replied: “Perfect.”

The jury was told that Lindsay and Barnes wrote in their police notebooks that they had seen Horner running from the cordon towards St Margaret’s Church, adjoining Westminster Abbey, after saying he planned to damage it.

Vickers, for the prosecution, told the court there was “clear evidence of an agreement being formed between PCs Ott and Lindsay, which PCs Lindsay and Barnes subsequently acted upon”.

Ott, from Rochester in Kent, denied assault occasioning actual bodily harm and perverting the course of justice. He told the court he believed Horner was intent on causing damage.

Lindsay, from Leytonstone, east London, and Barnes, from Greenhithe, Kent, both denied perverting the course of justice. In his evidence, Lindsay said he was “adamant” Horner had threatened to damage the church. Barnes told the court he had heard the student say he was going to “smash the fucking church up”.

A sentencing date for Ott has yet to be set.