UPDATE 4 MARCH 2015
Andrew Mitchell agrees to pay PC Rowland £80,000 in damages for falsely accusing him of lying. Mitchell will also have to pay some or all of Rowland's costs which are still to be determined. More here.
UPDATE 27 NOVEMBER 2014
Mr Justice Mitting ruled in the High Court today 27 November 2014 that Andrew Mitchell did use the word 'pleb' and that the account of what he said by PC Toby Rowland was substantially true.
"I am satisfied at least on the balance of probabilities that Mr Mitchell did speak the words alleged or something so close to them as to amount to the same including the politically toxic word pleb."
Mitchell was suing The Sun newspaper for a September 2012 report in which it alleged he said to police who would not let him ride his bicycle through the vehicle gate
"Best you learn your fucking place - you don't run this fucking country - you're fucking plebs."
PC Toby Rowland was present at the time and wrote the words in his notebook. He counter-sued when Mitchell effectively called him a liar who had made the words up. Although Mitchell admitted to using the word 'fucking' he denied using the word 'pleb'.
But the judge said PC Rowland "was not the sort of man who would have had the wit, imagination or inclination to invent on the spur of the moment an account of what a senior politician had said to him in temper".
Full judgment
UPDATE 10 JANUARY 2014
PC Keith Wallis admitted he lied when he gave an account of Andrew Mitchell's confrontation with police at Downing Steet. He was not present. He pleaded guilty in court to misconduct in public office and will be sentenced later.
UPDATE 16 OCTOBER 2013
Evidence is growing that the police fitted up Andrew Mitchell after the incident with his bicycle at Downing Street more than a year ago. Deciding between two competing accounts by a politician and a police officer is always difficult. But clearly the recording of the meeting between Mitchell and the Police Federation three days after the event shows the officers' account of it given immediately afterwards to the press was not correct. When they gave it they did not know Mitchell was recording it. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has criticised the three officers concerned and the lack of disciplinary proceedings against them http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24536328
UPDATE
At the end of March 2013 Andrew Mitchell issued libel proceedings against the Sun newspaper for its story about these events.
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It is the first clause in the newly published verbatim rant of Chief Whip the Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP which I find the most offensive. To a police officer doing their job and following the security rules they had been told to follow – ‘Best you learn your f------ place’. Oh dear.
Andrew Mitchell agrees to pay PC Rowland £80,000 in damages for falsely accusing him of lying. Mitchell will also have to pay some or all of Rowland's costs which are still to be determined. More here.
UPDATE 27 NOVEMBER 2014
Mr Justice Mitting ruled in the High Court today 27 November 2014 that Andrew Mitchell did use the word 'pleb' and that the account of what he said by PC Toby Rowland was substantially true.
"I am satisfied at least on the balance of probabilities that Mr Mitchell did speak the words alleged or something so close to them as to amount to the same including the politically toxic word pleb."
Mitchell was suing The Sun newspaper for a September 2012 report in which it alleged he said to police who would not let him ride his bicycle through the vehicle gate
"Best you learn your fucking place - you don't run this fucking country - you're fucking plebs."
PC Toby Rowland was present at the time and wrote the words in his notebook. He counter-sued when Mitchell effectively called him a liar who had made the words up. Although Mitchell admitted to using the word 'fucking' he denied using the word 'pleb'.
But the judge said PC Rowland "was not the sort of man who would have had the wit, imagination or inclination to invent on the spur of the moment an account of what a senior politician had said to him in temper".
Full judgment
UPDATE 10 JANUARY 2014
PC Keith Wallis admitted he lied when he gave an account of Andrew Mitchell's confrontation with police at Downing Steet. He was not present. He pleaded guilty in court to misconduct in public office and will be sentenced later.
UPDATE 16 OCTOBER 2013
Evidence is growing that the police fitted up Andrew Mitchell after the incident with his bicycle at Downing Street more than a year ago. Deciding between two competing accounts by a politician and a police officer is always difficult. But clearly the recording of the meeting between Mitchell and the Police Federation three days after the event shows the officers' account of it given immediately afterwards to the press was not correct. When they gave it they did not know Mitchell was recording it. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has criticised the three officers concerned and the lack of disciplinary proceedings against them http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24536328
UPDATE
At the end of March 2013 Andrew Mitchell issued libel proceedings against the Sun newspaper for its story about these events.
___________________________________
It is the first clause in the newly published verbatim rant of Chief Whip the Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP which I find the most offensive. To a police officer doing their job and following the security rules they had been told to follow – ‘Best you learn your f------ place’. Oh dear.
The real
damage of this whole episode is, of course, the class one. We rule, you are
ruled, oozes from every word. And not because we are elected, just because of
who we are. Few things could be more damaging to the present Government.
Of course,
Mr Mitchell (as he likes to be addressed) is correct that the police ‘don’t run
the f------- Government’, and we would all fight (I hope) to keep it so, even
avowed pacifists like me. But, appointed by us and given rules on security to
keep our elected members safe, the police officer at that barrier did have the
right to tell him which gate he was allowed to use. However annoying those
petty rules may be, politicians of all people should follow them. If they want
the rules changed then they have the power to make that happen.
And as for ‘you’re
all f------- plebs’, that is a word that will haunt Mr Mitchell as long as he
is in politics. Because it fits precisely the tone of the rant. In Rome ‘plebeians’
meant the mass of the people as opposed to the patrician class who ruled them. Back
to ‘learn your place’. Sorry, ‘learn your fucking place’. I don’t wish to
misquote the Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP.
Before the apparently full account by the officer was published in The Daily Telegraph dated 25 September, Mr Mitchell said "I am
very clear about what I said and what I didn't say and I want to make it
absolutely clear that I did not use the words that have been attributed to me."
He also apologised again.
The Daily Telegraph account http://goo.gl/J2sV1
