A police officer has been dismissed for hospitalising a man after a ‘stop and search’.

Metropolitan Police officer PC Martin Binala has been dismissed from the force he dragged a man out of his car during a stop and search operation. The mishandled operation left Karo Grigoryan traumatised and requiring hospital treatment for his injuries.

The officers had been in plain clothes and an unmarked police car, without bodyworn cameras. Grigoryan believed he was being robbed. The officers pepper sprayed him, and Grigoryan can be heard on video footage screaming ‘help me, help me’. He sustained injuries to his face and eardrum and bruising on his back and neck.

The hearing found that Binala had been dishonest in claiming to smell cannabis coming from inside the car. It also criticised the officers’ delay in calling for an ambulance, and leaving him handcuffed for an excessive period after discovering no drugs in his car.

Furthermore, the misconduct panel stated that if they had correctly completed the intelligence checks on Grigoryan’s number plate, the officers would have reached the conclusion that his vehicle was linked to no criminal activity.

Lawyer for the Independent Office for Police Conduct, Alan Jenkins, stated: ‘The purpose of misconduct proceedings is to protect the public and to maintain public confidence in the police,” Jenkins said. “How would the public regard this incident where a man who has done nothing wrong is so mistreated by police officers that he ends up being taken to hospital?’