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By Andrew Campbell

“Modern-day Bogeyman” Akinwale Arobieke today accused police of a witch hunt after three complaints against officers were upheld.

In his first interview, the 52-year-old from Liverpool, who is banned from touching muscles, told how he spent almost two years in jail awaiting charges that were either dropped or from which he was acquitted.

Mr Arobieke revealed he was planning to sue Merseyside and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) over his treatment.

A GMP Professional Standards investigation found two senior officers, including Oldham's divisional commander, were given "words of advice" over their handling of an earlier complaint by Mr Arobieke against Temporary Detective Inspector (TDI) Lewis Hughes.

That complaint, which police failed to deal with correctly, was later to form part of a charge against Mr Arobieke of harassing TDI Hughes.

The case collapsed after the 28-year-old detective acted in what the GMP investigation described as an “unacceptable and unprofessional” manner outside court.

TDI Hughes has now been formally spoken to by senior officers, described as "management action", relating to the court rant in which "there was evidence to support misconduct".

Mr Arobieke became the subject of a far- reaching Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) in 2006 amid numerous allegations of touching young men's muscles and following long spells in prison.

The 6ft 5in body building enthusiast said during the last 2½ years he had been repeatedly arrested and remanded in custody – yet none of the charges had led to convictions.

That includes his arrest at Manchester's Royal Northern College of Music on August 12, 2012 where he was attending a body building competition.

The incident started a string of events which last week led the GMP investigation to conclude that Oldham-based Sergeant Lewis Hughes, who was promoted to Temporary Detective Inspector in March last year, had a case to answer for misconduct.

Mr Arobieke, formerly of Devonshire Road, Toxteth, was arrested after being spotted by TDI Hughes while off-duty at the Manchester event.

In a call to a police operator, TDI Lewis said: "There's a famous paedophile here." and then referred to Mr Arobieke by his nickname.

He added: "His real name is quite a lengthy Nigerian name. He's very famous . . . He's here accosting people in the toilets. As far as I know he's got bail conditions that prevent him from attending this sort of event."

TDI Hughes then called for officers to attend the college.

Mr Arobieke – who has never been convicted of a sexual offence and strenuously denies accosting people at the event – was arrested, taken to Longsight Police Station and charged with attending an event at a college without reasonable excuse against the terms of his SOPO.

He was not charged with any other offences. Mr Arobieke is banned from educational premises but argued the college was not being used in an educational capacity on the day he was arrested. He says he was charged and remanded in custody without being given an opportunity to explain his actions.

On September 27, 2012, following six weeks in prison, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case against Mr Arobieke – four days before it was due to go to court. He was released the same day.

The GMP professional standards report found that Mr Arobieke was arrested in good faith but had he been allowed to explain his presence at the school "or had he been charged with an additional offence of attempted sexual assault, this would have been clarified at an early stage and not resulted in an extended period in custody".

Less than a fortnight later, Mr Arobieke and TDI Hughes' paths crossed again at a body building show in Birmingham Town Hall. TDI Hughes reported Mr Arobieke to two West Midlands police officers claiming he was barred from such events.

After explaining his presence and following police checks, Mr Arobieke was allowed back inside the building.

Versions of events in Birmingham vary greatly but the following day, October 8, Mr Arobieke made a formal complaint at Oldham police station about TDI Hughes' conduct.

Unknown to Mr Arobieke at the time, the officer who took the complaint, Inspector James Troisi, did not officially record it. Nor did he inform Mr Arobieke that he had not done so – depriving him of the right to appeal.

The GMP report says: "Inspector Troisi outlines that the decision was not to record at that particular time.

“He asserts that the complaint was never ignored or dismissed as details were fully documented on police systems".

He told investigators he "was concerned regarding the motive behind the complaint" but it was "accepted that Inspector Troisi should have officially recorded the complaint regardless of any belief held."

He informed Oldham's divisional commander, Chief Superintendent Catherine Hankinson, of his actions.

However, she told investigators she could not "specifically recall this".

The Professional Standards investigation upheld a complaint against both officers ruling they had done nothing unlawful but would be given words of advice over handling complaints.

To Mr Arobieke's astonishment, that mishandled complaint was to form part of a harassment charge – against him.

On October 20, Mr Arobieke and TDI Hughes were again at a body building show in Manchester's Trafford Park.

Mr Arobieke said there was a brief exchange with a friend of TDI Hughes. The officer told the GMP investigation that he "noticed Mr Arobieke filming or photographing him throughout the day" and claimed his friend had been threatened.

Thirteen days later, Mr Arobieke was arrested and charged with eight breaches of his SOPO, which were unrelated to TDI Hughes, and remanded in custody at Manchester Prison. On December 12, he was further arrested while already in custody and charged with harassing the young detective inspector.

The charges stated that between October 6 and October 21 Mr Arobieke caused Lewis Hughes to "fear violence would be used against him".

One charge read that Mr Arobieke: "Directed threats towards him to the effect you knew where he lived, knew where he worked, knew where he went to the gym, told him he was dead, accused him of being racist and tried to persuade a group of black males to physically attack him".

It was also alleged that on October 8, 2012, Mr Arobieke "attended Oldham Police Station making false allegations in relation to the conduct of Lewis Hughes about the events of October 7, 2012, and tried to find out where he lived".

Mr Arobieke was to spend the next nine months on remand in Manchester jail while he prepared to defend himself at both trials.

The first trial lasted two weeks at Manchester Crown Court. It took the jury less than an hour to clear Mr Arobieke of all eight charges of breaching his SOPO.

During the trial, he claimed that the witnesses were either mistaken or lying and the case against him was the result of a “modern-day witch hunt” by police after he made official complaints against certain officers.

He was released on bail ahead of the second trial for alleged harassment. The trial began on October 23 last year but collapsed the following day when Judge Richard Mansell, QC, instructed the jury to find not guilty verdicts.

The move followed an outburst by TDI Hughes in the court's public area in which a West Midlands police officer overheard him say "something similar to 'He can't do that, that man's a paedophile, he's a sex offender and a killer, he's been stalking me for months'.” The outburst came straight after he had been cross- examined by Mr Arobieke during which he said he was "genuinely sorry" for any offence caused by the use of the word "paedophile".

Reports of TDI Hughes' rant, along with other information, were relayed to the judge and Mr Arobieke was acquitted.

Once the trial ended, GMP were able to investigate numerous far-reaching complaints by Mr Arobieke against the force and the actions of its officers. His complaint was taken seriously enough to warrant a 30-minute face-to-face meeting with GMP chief constable Sir Peter Fahy at the force headquarters.

Conducted by Detective Chief Inspector Jane Little, the findings were released to Mr Arobieke on January 23 and include a number of complaints that were rejected but three that were upheld.

Ruling on the language used by TDI Hughes to describe Mr Arobieke, the GMP professional standards report says: "In relation to the comments made, referring to Mr Arobieke as a "murderer" and "sex offender", TDI Hughes outlines the fact that he does not believe he used those precise terms. However, there is evidence to support that inappropriate comments were made by TDI Hughes and on balance the investigation has found that it is more likely than not that he used those words. The comments made by TDI Hughes are not deemed to be acceptable behaviour."

The report adds: "Also in relation to the behaviour displayed by the officer outside of the court, there is evidence to suggest the behaviour displayed was unacceptable and unprofessional". The report however accepts that as an alleged victim of harassment TDI Hughes was extremely upset and emotional and the outburst was "out of character".

The findings also state it was not possible to determine that TDI Hughes had "trumped up" his allegations and that element of Mr Arobieke's complaint was not upheld.

In an unrelated matter, Mr Arobieke alleged that during a visit to GMP headquarters on December 9 last year, a staff member "came from behind the counter and confronted him in a threatening manner". The report said CCTV was viewed and "the conduct of the counter clerk was overly confrontational and likely to cause offence". The staff member "has been formally advised about his conduct".

Greater Manchester Police said today: "Mr Arobieke contacted GMP’s Professional Standards Branch to raise a number of concerns. In relation to one of the complaints made, an officer will be subject to management action where he will receive words of advice in relation to his conduct on that occasion, where there was evidence to support misconduct on his part.

"With regards to another allegation made, two officers will receive advice in relation to the recording of complaints after concerns raised by Mr Arobieke to an officer were logged on police systems with considerations given, but a formal complaint was not recorded."

Arobieke: It's been a witch hunt

Akinwale Arobieke today said he intended suing both Greater Manchester and Merseyside Police over his treatment.

He said: "It's a witch hunt and it needs to stop and people need to realise there's a human being behind all of this nonsense. I know and have known from day one that this can't carry on forever. I was just waiting for people to wake up to what's going on. What's happened with TDI Hughes is the tipping point and it's come crashing down.

"The Professional Standards report goes some way and I'm grateful for its findings but it's just the tip of the iceberg and should have gone much further.

"At last I've been vindicated in an official report. I have always said this was not about having Lewis Hughes sacked – it's about me not accepting police officers behaving towards me like that as no-one else would want either."

His Liverpool-based lawyer Joe Ely added: "Mr Arobieke has become a modern-day bogeyman and so there's been a witch hunt against him and he's spent a long time in custody only to be found not guilty in a jury trial.

"It seems easy for members of the public to make allegations because of his notoriety."

The Merseyside complaint related to a year Mr Arobieke spent in Liverpool Prison – being released just days before his arrest at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Catalogue of offences

Akinwale Arobieke has been in and out of jail since first hitting the headlines in the 1980s.

At the end of the decade, he was convicted of manslaughter over the death of Gary Kelly, who was electrocuted while allegedly running away from Arobieke.

That verdict was overturned but he was jailed for 30 months in 2001 for making threats to kill a couple in Widnes.

In December, 2003, Arobieke was jailed for six years for 15 harassment offences and another charge of witness harassment.

On his release he was handed a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO).

The order, imposed by police in 2006, banned him from specific activities including touching men’s muscles and asking them to do squats.

He once admitted in court to an “unusual interest in muscles, the development of muscles and the potential of young men to improve their physique”.

He was jailed for breaching his SOPO before magistrates made the order indefinite in 2008.

He received jail sentences in 2009 and 2010 for breaching the order.

*More on this: Akinwale Arobieke - a year in jail for a 'crime' CCTV showed I didn't commit