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Ex-policeman in line for £1m damages at Leeds hearing
Former police officer Sultan Alam
A FORMER police officer could win £1 million in damages after he was wrongfully sent to prison as a result of a malicious prosecution brought by colleagues.
Cleveland Police has admitted liability after it was sued by ex-Pc Sultan Alam, who has battled to win justice for 17 years after his life was destroyed.
He was wrongly prosecuted and convicted of handling stolen goods in 1996, two years after first being accused of “car ringing”.
He served half his 18-month sentence behind bars and, once free, began the long battle to clear his name while working as a taxi driver. That culminated in 2007 with him being cleared by the Court of Appeal.
In 2003, four fellow officers involved in Mr Alam’s original prosecution were charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and other offences, but were acquitted.
Mr Alam’s Court of Appeal judgment said: “This is a very serious case of misconduct on the part of the police.”
Mr Alam’s legal team argue he is entitled to exemplary damages as “the officers responsible for the wholly unlawful conduct in this case were never punished - the full extent of the criminal and disciplinary sanctions applied were that one of them suffered the loss of three days’ pay”.
Mr Alam’s jail sentence was an ordeal for a police officer who knew he was innocent, and he had to be moved three times after inmates became aware of who he was.
Mr Alam, a father of two girls who were eight and six when he was convicted, separated from his wife in 2002 as a result of the turmoil the case brought to his family life.
He remarried but his second marriage failed under the pressure of what had happened and his resulting psychiatric illness.
After being cleared in 2007, he was reinstated to Cleveland Police but retired in 2009 on health grounds.
Mr Alam brought employment tribunal proceedings against a superior in 1993, claiming racial discrimination after he missed out on promotion despite passing his sergeant’s exams.
A relative of that superior officer was involved in the car-ringing investigation, which started in 1994.
At a hearing at Middlesbrough County Court, his barrister Hugh Tomlinson QC said: “This is an assessment of damages hearing in a case brought by Sultan Alam against the chief constable of Cleveland Police, a case in which, remarkably, malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office have been admitted by the chief constable.
“Misfeasance and malice which resulted in Mr Alam, who was at the relevant time a police officer, spending nine months in prison and his conviction only being quashed 11 years later.”
Mr Tomlinson said his client was entitled to substantial damages as he missed out possible promotions “because of the outrageous wrong-doing of fellow officers”.
The case was adjourned as two full days would be needed for the hearing, which will take place in Leeds at a later date.
Mr Tomlinson said: “It is obviously important for everybody that this sorry matter be brought to a speedy end.”
Mr Alam’s legal team argue that he is entitled to general damages for malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office, covering distress, loss of liberty and damage to reputation.
They say he should also have aggravated damages, “to cover the fact that Mr Alam’s sense of injury was justifiably heightened by the conduct of the police officers in this case”.
They further claim that the officer, whose father died before his name was cleared, should win exemplary damages because his treatment by the force he joined in 1984 was so bad.
His team argued: “Mr Alam was the subject of appalling misconduct by police officers with the result that the Chief Constable has admitted liability for misfeasance in public office and malicious prosecution.
“Mr Alam is plainly entitled to receive a very substantial award of damages.
“The quantum of his award of ‘general, aggravated and exemplary’ damages should, quite rightly in view of the misconduct involved, be one of the highest ever made by an English court in a case of this kind.”
They argue he should be awarded almost £847,000 on top of the £260,000 he has already received in lost back pay.
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