Officer Warren Luke was cleared of the charge of "actual bodily harm" after he admitted to causing more than 40 injuries to a woman who wouldn't leave the hospital bedside of her seven year old daughter, who has cerebral palsy.

The officer said he beat the woman up because he thought that gassing her would endanger her daughter. He described kicking the woman in the face with his booted foot a "distraction strike," and explained that "My footwear was a boot but it's light."

Security staff at the hospital who witnessed the incident told the court they were appalled by it. Two police constables who also attended the incident gave evidence for the prosecution. Laura Riley, one of the officers, wept as she described the scene, and the officer Mary Clark described the incident as "just horrific". The mother told the Guardian that her daughter had been sick since she was a newborn and she had fought hard ever since to keep her alive; at one point the baby had been on a life-support machine; she had pleaded with doctors not to switch it off. A Metropolitan police service spokesman confirmed that Luke had been cleared of actual bodily harm and said that a misconduct review would take place.

Met policeman cleared after kicking mother tending to her child in hospital [Diane Taylor/The Guardian]

(Image: Metropolitan Police sign in London, D Coetzee, CC-BY)

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