DYFED-POWYS POLICE have been told that safety guards should be fitted to all cell doors following an incident in which a man had part of his fingers chopped off.
29-year-old Jamie Clark, from Burry Port, was injured after being wrongly accused of assaulting a police officer.
He was arrested in June last year and was accused of assaulting PC Christopher Burton at Llanelli police station.
He then claimed he was stripped naked, pepper sprayed and ‘forced’ into a cell by up to six police officers.
Mr Clark said: “I went to get out but that’s when I felt this huge pain and felt my flesh being torn away when the door was shut,” he said last year.
“I was screaming in agony. I was begging the officers to open the door but no-one helped me.”
Following his fingers being trapped in the door, Mr Clark won a legal battle to get CCTV footage of the incident.
He then provided the footage to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and lodged a formal complaint.
It was ruled that there was insufficient evidence to bring a misconduct case against officers involved in the incident, however the IPCC did suggest that the police force installed ‘finger guards’.
A spokesperson for the IPCC said: “The force accepted recommendations to remind custody officers that significant events and decisions should be recorded in detail and to ensure custody staff training looks at minimising any risk of injury to detainees during the closure of cell doors.
“Dyfed-Powys Police also planned to assess the possibility of installing finger guards in custody suites.”
Dyfed-Powys Police said they had ‘complied with recommendations from the IPCC, including adding a new element around finger safety to training and reviewing the possibility of finger guards’.
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