A SOLICITOR has been awarded more than £500,000 in damages after he was wrongfully arrested and his family held in their own home.

James Watson, a senior partner with the Teesside law firm of Watson Woodhouse Solicitors, was detained in June 2009 on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Held by Cleveland Police for 29 hours, Mr Watson's home was searched and his wife and children were unable to leave the property.

Searches, which went on for 12 hours, were also carried out at his offices in Middlesbrough and documents removed, Mr Watson says, beyond the scope of the warrants obtained by police.

However, after an investigation spanning ten months, Mr Watson was told he would not be charged and he, his family and his business partners began their own legal action.

Four years on and after reaching a settlement with the force worth a total of £550,000 plus costs, Mr Watson has spoken of his anger that a senior officer in the case was firstly, not suspended and then allowed to retire, meaning he was not liable to sanctions from an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

Mr Watson asserts the reason behind his arrest centred on the collapse of an alleged kidnap case involving a client of his and his knowledge of other matters pertaining to the ongoing corruption investigation involving the force.

"Cleveland Police have wasted millions of pounds of public money. It spent three years investigating me when - as it now accepts - there was not a shred of evidence against me," he said in a statement. "It recruited an expensive legal team to defend civil proceedings that it now accepts it cannot defend.

"Rather than hand over the documents that the Court ordered it to disclose, it is paying over half-a-million pounds in damages together with substantial costs.

"It is also permitting a DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) to retire on a full pension that will cost council tax payers hundreds of thousands of pounds over the years to come.

"Millions of pounds have been wasted and proper policing has been neglected."

The decision not to suspend the DCI was taken by Assistant Chief Constable Sean White.

His conduct was later criticised in the IPCC's final report into six complaints from Mr Watson, his family and business partners.

At the conclusion of the investigation, four of those complaints were unsubstantiated, a fifth matter was a 'statement of fact' involving an officer from another Force and the sixth complaint is subject of the settlement with Mr Watson.

Responding to the decision, Cleveland's new Chief Constable, Jacqui Cheer, said: "Having fully considered the interim report of the IPCC investigator, and having consulted with specialist advisors as well as inviting submissions to the suspension review process from key parties, Assistant Chief Constable Sean White decided that the conditions to justify suspension were not met.

"ACC White strongly refutes the claim that his decision was influenced or based upon anything other than the facts and evidence presented to him at the time of the decision making process.

"The IPCC report recommends that I debrief and discuss with ACC White the process for making this decision, with the benefit of hindsight, which I have done, and I fully support him.

"I have accepted the recommendations within the report and have implemented changes.

"There is a second managed IPCC investigation into new complaints submitted by the same complainant and therefore it would not be right for me to make any additional comments at this stage."

Mr Watson's barrister, Fiona Murphy, described the settlement as a "complete vindication".
"The actions of Cleveland Police amounted to an attack not only upon Mr Watson, his firm and family, but upon the criminal justice system itself," she said, adding that the outcome was achieved "through the same dogged pursuit of justice that Mr Watson has applied to his work as a defence solicitor."