Arrest... or assault? Judge's disgust after soldier is held down and hit EIGHT times



A judge has condemned an apparent police assault on a soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lance Corporal Mark Aspinall, 24, was thrown to the ground by three uniformed officers after a night out with friends and punched eight times.

The violent arrest - caught on CCTV - shocked a crown court judge, who called it appalling.

Officers responding to reports of trouble move in on Lance Corporal Mark Aspinall

But astonishingly, Lance Corporal Aspinall was himself hauled before the courts and convicted of assaulting the police.

He was sentenced to 200 hours' community service and even ordered to pay compensation to the officers.

His ordeal ended only when Judge John Phipps watched the damning CCTV footage and quashed the verdict on appeal.

The soldier lies pinned on the ground, with his head pressed to the road



Judge Phipps said: 'I am shocked and appalled at the level of police violence shown here.'

Last night, Mr Aspinall - who served for seven years in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers - said: 'I was scared for my life. I remember thinking, "I'm going to die here. I can't believe I've survived Afghanistan and Iraq and now I'm going to die on this main road in my home town at the hands of the police".

'Yet I was the one who ended up in the dock, not the officers.'

One of the officers, his arm circled, rains punches down on the helpless man



Mr Aspinall had been drinking with friends in Wigan on Sunday July 27. He left the town's Walkabout bar at 2.40am.

Police officers had been called to the town centre to deal with a man reportedly causing a nuisance to paramedics.

But when a special constable and two colleagues saw Mr Aspinall in the road they presumed he was the cause of the trouble.



In the footage, the soldier can be seen 10ft from them in the middle of the road as they stand on the pavement.

Suddenly, the officers move across the road towards him and, startled, Mr Aspinall falls over.

As he gets to his feet one officer rugby tackles him, while the other two help pin him to the ground and attempt to handcuff him.

Injuries: A beaten and bruised Mark Aspinall after the attack

The footage appears to show one of the officers - Special Constable Peter Lightfoot, 39 - raining punches into the back of the defenceless man as he lies on the ground.

Eight blows are struck in just a few seconds and the police officer stops only when a car drives past slowly.



Eventually, Mr Aspinall was bundled into a police van in handcuffs, with injuries to his face and neck. He was taken to Wigan police station and kept in custody for 20 hours.

He was charged with two counts of police assault and a public order offence.

On September 22, at Wigan magistrates' court, the officers read statements claiming Mr Aspinall had been behaving violently.

Despite viewing the footage, magistrates found him guilty of the assaults, sentenced him to community service and gave him a suspended-prison sentence. They also ordered him to pay £250 compensation.

Mr Aspinall, who returned from Afghanistan in February and was working his notice in the Army at the time of attack, said: 'I was drunk, I'll admit that, but I wasn't causing trouble.

Mr Aspinall



'It was awful. I had come back from fighting in Afghanistan and now, on community service, I was painting a school as a convict, standing next to men who were drug dealers and robbers.'

He lodged an appeal against the conviction and on November 13 at Liverpool Crown Court, Judge Phipps saw the footage and asked: 'Where is this man of violence? I am shocked and appalled at the level of police violence shown here.'

The judge said he had 'great concerns' about the CCTV footage and questioned the truthfulness of the officers' statements.

'I would go as far as to say the statements contain untruths,' he added.

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said the matter had been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

One officer has had his duties restricted and another two are being investigated.

See the full CCTV footage here



