Officers admit 2020 incident was mishandled

DAVISON'S CITY PARK ATTACK WAS NOT REFERRED TO CPS

- ROD MINCHIN

A DETECTIVE has admitted that the decision not to refer Jake Davison’s assault of two teenagers to the Crown Prosecution Service was the wrong one and posed a danger to the public, an inquest has heard.

Detective Sergeant Edward Bagshaw said attacks by Davison on a 16-yearold boy and a 15-year-old girl should have been sent to prosecutors to consider charging him with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and battery.

However, the police were under pressure” not to send more cases to the courts, which were struggling to deal with increased backlogs caused by the pandemic, and he was put through a restorative justice programme.

The inquest heard the 22-year-old gunman reigned down a volley of punches on the boy and slapped his female friend after being called a fat c***” by another teenager. His victim suffered injuries to an eyebrow, his nose and lip during the incident in a Plymouth park in September 2020.

The apprentice crane operator was never charged and instead was referred to the Pathfinder restorative justice scheme. His legally held shotgun and certificate were later seized after a member of the scheme warned the force he was a licence holder, but they were returned to him in July 2021.