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A single mum has claimed she was assaulted, terrorised, knocked to the ground and threatened by a group of plain-clothes officers who turned up at her address because of flawed intelligence.

The 30-year-old needed hospital treatment and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder following the horrific incident at the hands of the three serving Police Scotland officers.

In an official complaint to watchdogs, she said she was twice forcibly knocked to the ground during the incident, then taunted as a “f***ing nutjob” by an officer who opened a sensitive letter about an NHS appointment.

She claimed one of the officers – described as the ringleader of the three – damaged her vulnerable son’s bedroom.

The same officer’s behaviour got worse, she says, when it started to become apparent they had made a critical error.

The mum, from East Kilbride, said the officer continued to trash her house, knocking pictures of her then seven-year-old boy to the ground.

She says he shouted, “Sleep with one eye open tonight because we’ll be back,” when the three eventually left.

The woman, who is just 5ft 5in tall, thought the police were a criminal gang of bogus officers for almost the entire duration of the ordeal.

She says she only started to realise they might be real officers when one produced a police radio.

It later emerged that they did not have a warrant to search any house as part of their inquiry.

Watchdog the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC) has found serious failings in the way the woman’s complaint was handled by officers.

The mum fought back tears as she said: “The first time I saw them, I thought they were a gang of criminals. I was terrified as they made me a prisoner in my own home.

(Image: UGC)

“At no point did I think they could be police because of the way they behaved and treated me.”

She complained to police but says a statement was altered by an investigating chief inspector from the force’s Professional Standards Unit.

Police Scotland did not uphold her five-pronged complaint in a decision seen by the woman, her family and lawyers as a whitewash.

She subsequently complained to PIRC, who found serious failures in the handling of the woman’s complaint.

It issued Police Scotland with a “reconsideration direction”, which was expected to be implemented five months ago.

It highlights serious inconsistencies in accounts given by the officers involved.

And it includes recommendations that the complaints should have been upheld or reconsidered by a new investigator and that the victim should have received an apology.

None of that has so far happened.

A criminal inquiry was dropped when the three officers denied the woman’s version. The woman was told by the Crown Office that it would be unlikely to get a successful conviction when it was her word against the three men.

The woman said: “I feel I need closure. I need to get to the bottom of why they acted like they did. I have panic attacks whenever I see a police car.

“These were three men in the house of a lone woman. Do they not have wives and daughters? The idea of the worst one of them, in particular, being allowed access into the houses of other women frightens me.”

The mum had attended a funeral and sat down to eat a bowl of pasta and read her local paper, the East Kilbride News, on the night of the incident – November 11, 2016.

In a bizarre twist of fate, she had read a story in that week’s edition which highlighted a spate of incidents involving a gang posing as police officers to steal cars.

Between 8pm and 8.30pm, she heard a knock at the front door of her townhouse.

She said: “I had read the story in the paper which quoted a superintendent who said that all police attending doors would be carrying ID.

“It said that anyone who was concerned about the authenticity of officers should dial 101.

“I went to my front door and opened it very slightly. The first gentleman was dressed in an Adidas tracksuit top, which had the sleeves rolled up, and he had heavily tattooed arms.

“That just isn’t what I expect the police to look like. When he said ‘Police Scotland’, I thought he might be to do with this gang so I shut the door and went up to my bedroom.

“He could still see me and he was showing me a lanyard round his neck. I said I was going to phone 101 to verify who they were.

“I told him that through the window while I got through to a recorded message.

“A second gentleman wearing a blue fleece shouted, ‘We’ve shown you a f***ing card, we gave you enough f***ing time,’ and started kicking my front door.”

Breaking down as she recalled her terror, she said: “I was on my own in the house and I could hear them kicking the door. I just didn’t know what to do. I could see my door starting to give way with each kick.

“I thought to run to the nearest public place. I ran out of my back door and headed across the public park to the shop, which is 50 yards from my back garden, with my pet dog running in the other direction.

“It was dark and cold and had been snowing. I was wearing pyjama shorts and socks. The next thing I knew, I was struck across the back of the legs. I landed face first on the ground and somebody landed on my back to push me into the ground.

“They bent my arms up my back till my hands were at my shoulder blades.

“My hair extensions were pulled out. I thought this was a gang who had come to steal my car. I thought they had come after me in case I raised the alarm.

“I was screaming and shouting at the top of my voice, ‘Help! Phone the police!’

“I was taken back through my back door and they let my arms go and put in cuffs to the front. Other than when they initially shouted at the door, they didn’t do anything to show me ID or tell me they were the police.

“I perched myself on my radiator in handcuffs. I heard the guy in the blue fleece ask a neighbour about ‘Chloe’ but that’s not my name. The next thing I knew, he was reading me my rights and telling me anything I said could be used in evidence.

“A third guy in a black zipper came down from my son’s bedroom.

“The guy in the blue fleece used a police radio and at this point I started to think these guys might actually be the police, weird though it seemed at the time. They certainly acted like criminals.

“When the guy in the blue fleece went past me, he swiped my feet from under me and, because I was cuffed, I fell to the ground on my left-hand side.

“He didn’t pick me up but his colleague in the Adidas tracksuit did. He was a bit more considerate at that point. But his

colleague came down the stairs after having been in my son’s bedroom. He was raging and shouting, ‘Give up the f***ing game, Chloe. Where the f*** is he?

“I felt so intimidated, I could hardly speak. I told his colleague I wasn’t Chloe. Eventually I persuaded them to look in my handbag to confirm my real identity.

“This is a full 15 minutes after the whole thing started. He went through my handbag and found a letter from the NHS about a medical appointment for anxiety, which I have suffered from since my son was born prematurely.

“He opened it, read it and said, ‘Well, this explains a lot. You’re a f***ing nutjob. You’re mental.’ He started smashing all the pictures of my son that I had up in a small unit in my living room.

“He said, ‘We’ll be phoning social work. You’ll not see your son again.’

“Eventually the third man in the black said they had another call radioed in and they turned to go.

“I rushed to close the door behind them and the man in the blue turned and said, ‘Sleep with one eye open – we’ll be back.’

“I ran to my neighbour’s house and stood crying till my friends and family arrived.”