Student cleared after police tried to curb city pub crawl

Sheffield University student Jamie McGregor had been accused of assaulting Sergeant Katherine Wallis during the "cops and robbers"-themed pub crawl in February, when she suffered a black eye, dislocated knee cap and lost her front tooth.

But after four hours of deliberations the jury at Sheffield Crown Court returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty.

Outside court Mr McGregor said: "The right decision has been made."

The student, of Leyfield Avenue, Stockport, had told the court that police were "heavy handed" in their approach to dealing with the event and said he was ejected from the queue outside Players Bar on West Street in an "unacceptable" manner.

He told the jury: "I didn't know what was happening. I felt myself being pulled across the road for no reason."

During the four-day trial Mr McGregor's barrister Dermot Hughes cross-examined other officers who were policing the Carnage event.

He questioned Pc Zareen Gulza about whether an incident during another Carnage UK event in October 2009 – when 19-year-old former Sheffield Hallam student Philip Laing urinated on a war memorial – had influenced police handling of the pub crawl four months later.

Mr Hughes said: "Is it fair to say the police and the organisers did not want anything of that kind to happen ever again?"

Pc Gulzar said: "Yes, but we were also there to protect members of the public."

Mr McGregor's studies were suspended when the university was informed of the alleged assault, but he is now retaking his second year.