- Police Officers Jonathan Clapham and Sam Franks sacked for gross misconduct
- The pair lied about smelling cannabis coming from sprinter Dos Santos’s car
The public has been left outraged over a crowdfunding page set up to raise money for the two Metropolitan Police officers who were sacked over the stop-and-search of two black athletes.
The JustGiving online fundraiser has raised £120,000 to help Jonathan Clapham and Sam Franks.
The pair were dismissed on Wednesday after a disciplinary panel found they had lied about smelling cannabis when they pulled over Team GB athlete Bianca Williams, 29, and her partner, 28-year-old Portuguese sprinter Ricardo Dos Santos on July 4, 2020.
The couple’s three-month-old baby was in the back seat.
Author Alice Vinten – a former London constable – condemned the donations on X, formerly Twitter. ‘Is this what we do now?’ she wrote. ‘Raise money for lying cops?’
The JustGiving page says the donations have been a ‘huge comfort’ for the ex-officers.
Jules Carey, a solicitor representing the athletes, said ‘a very significant number of the comments’ on the fundraising page defending the two officers appeared to be written by ‘serving officers, police units and police associations’.
He added: ‘Yet again it appears that loyalty is being held up by officers as a quality that should trump integrity.’
The comments have since been removed ‘to respect an impending appeal’.
Messages had described the situation as ‘scandalous appeasement and scapegoating’ and called to ‘stop destroying this once great police service the envy of the world’.
Mr Carey said: ‘Yet again it appears that loyalty is being held up by officers as a quality that should trump integrity.
‘The commissioner should immediately come out to publicly support the panel’s decision and the importance of accountability in the Met if public confidence in the police stands a chance of being restored in London.’
Author Alice Vinten, a former officer, condemned the donations in a tweet which said the officers had been ‘dismissed for lying about smelling cannabis during a stop and search on a black couple and their baby.’
She added: ‘Is this what we do now? Raise money for lying cops?’
The police followed the athletes as they drove to their west London home from training with their baby son, then three months old, in the back seat of their Mercedes.
They were accused of racially profiling the couple alongside fellow Met officers Acting Police Sergeant Rachel Simpson, Pc Allan Casey and Pc Michael Bond, who were found not to have breached any standards.
The misconduct panel heard they followed Mr Dos Santos in their police carrier because of the ‘appalling’ and ‘suspicious’ nature of his driving and were doing their duty when they conducted the stop and search.
The couple were handcuffed and searched on suspicion of having drugs and weapons after they were pulled over outside their property, but nothing was found.
During his evidence, Mr Dos Santos accused the officers of detaining him for ‘DWB, driving while black’.
The hearing was told Mr Dos Santos was stopped nine times within four weeks of buying a car in 2018.
Ms Williams cried as she watched footage of Mr Dos Santos getting pulled from the driver’s seat to the roadside and handcuffed.
Earlier this year, Ms Williams won bronze in the 4x100m at the World Athletics Championships.
Mr Dos Santos competed at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, held in 2021, in the 400m.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Matt Ward said the couple ‘deserved better and I apologise to them for the distress they have suffered’.
He said: ‘Honesty and integrity are at the core of policing and, as the panel has concluded, there can be no place in the Met for officers who do not uphold these values.’
He added that the panel’s findings highlight they ‘still have a long way to go to earn the trust of our communities, particularly our black communities when it comes to our use of stop and search’.
Olivia Martin is a dedicated sports journalist based in the UK. With a passion for various athletic disciplines, she covers everything from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis.
