Officer convicted of assault of teenage boy during response to incident in Wigan

An officer who grabbed an innocent teenager by the throat has been convicted of assault following an investigation by GMP’s dedicated unit for professional standards.

PC Benjamin Heppenstall (33), who is based at our Wigan district, was today (27 September 2024) convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm of a 16-year-old boy while on duty in January 2021.

Over the five-day hearing, the jury at Bolton Crown Court was played video footage taken from PC Heppenstall’s body-worn camera which showed the entirety of the assault.

The officer had responded to an incident at a care home for young people in Wigan where threats had been allegedly made to two women who worked there.

After arresting two suspects, and with the two workers physically unharmed and present in the room, PC Heppenstall told a 16-year-old boy, who was sat near the suspects on a sofa, to get out of the room and “go to bed.”

The boy refused, and PC Heppenstall proceeded to initially try and pull the boy up from the sofa by his arm, before then putting his hand forcefully around the boy’s neck and being verbally abusive.

Such was PC Heppenstall’s grip on the victim, he tore the boy’s t-shirt and pulled it off him before then forcefully grabbing his neck a second time, which resulted in the boy being injured and one of the workers, who was one of the initial victims, trying to intervene and pull PC Heppenstall away.

Our Professional Standards Directorate received a formal complaint about the incident and investigators worked to secure evidence, including PC Heppenstall’s body-worn footage and witness statements, to build a case for assault.

We restricted PC Heppenstall's duties in January 2021. Following today’s verdict, he faces being suspended from the force and we are now preparing misconduct proceedings. He will be sentenced on 27 November 2024.

Detective Chief Inspector Iqbal Ahmed, of our Professional Standards Directorate, said: “This was a shocking use of unnecessary and excessive force by Benjamin Heppenstall on a defenceless teenage boy who absolutely should not have been treated this way.

“Our officers have a really challenging role and are faced with instances that the general public will never experience. However, officers are trained to act professionally and proportionately, and it is clear here that PC Heppenstall acted beyond what was necessary when faced with a verbal refusal by the boy to do what he had told him to do.

“A significant part of this case was the body-worn footage captured on PC Heppenstall’s camera, which goes to show that this important equipment – which every frontline officer has – is not just for their protection, but also for the public’s protection too.

“The public need to have trust and confidence in our officers – thousands of whom are professional and compassionate people who serve the people of Greater Manchester each and every day. However, Heppenstall’s actions do not represent this, and it is thanks to the dedication of the Professional Standards Directorate at GMP that we have done our job in ensuring he his brought to justice for this actions.”