Exclusive: Force reaches out-of-court settlement with Xanthe Wells, who was accused of being at pro-Palestine demonstration. Scotland Yard has paid £5,000 in an out-of-court settlement after allegedly unlawfully imprisoning a 17-year-old who was wrongly accused of being at a pro-Palestine protest where a building was spray-painted.
The case is said by civil liberties campaigners to be compelling evidence of a heavy-handed approach by the Met to the policing of demonstrations over the last year. Xanthe Wells, now 20, who uses they/them pronouns, had first heard from the police in a voicemail message in February 2022 in which an officer said they wished to talk to them about CCTV footage in which Wells had been identified.
The following day, their mother was called and informed that Wells was a suspect in a crime and that she should bring them to a police station for a voluntary interview or face being “rounded up and arrested”, according to their lawyer’s letter of claim.
Wells attended Hammersmith police station two days later at midday, and was arrested on suspicion of burglary, affray and conspiracy to commit criminal damage. They were accused by an officer of being “radicalised”. At the same time, their parents’ house was searched and officers seized a blue hoodie, a pair of trousers and a pair of white trainers belonging to Wells’s brother from the hall.
