Two officers disciplined over failures to investigate nightclub incident

By David Hunter

Two police officers have been disciplined for failing to properly investigate an alleged assault on a teenager by a nightclub doorman.

The boy claimed he was pushed to the ground at a city centre club in 2014 and sustained a broken wrist.

The police ombudsman found the officer appointed to investigate the incident did "effectively nothing" to progress the case.

He failed to act on a statement taken by another officer, to check for video footage, and did not secure medical evidence of the boy's injuries.

A Police Ombudsman investigator also found that the officer failed to provide proper updates to the teenager on the progress of the investigation.

He said: “The officer did effectively nothing to progress this case. He seemed to be under the misapprehension that everything should have been done by the PSNI’s Case Progression Team (CPT).

“In actual fact, it was his role to provide evidence to the CPT to allow them to progress the investigation after its initial stages.”

Another officer was also disciplined for a delay in reviewing the case, after mistakenly believing it had been closed.

However, the officer was found to have taken adequate steps review and progress the investigation once he realised his error.