Businessman sues police who Tasered him and pulled him over three times in nine months

Businessman was searched and Tasered after buying car linked to gun crime
Suing the Met: Daniel Sylvester Picture: Paul Keogh
Paul Cheston11 March 2015

An innocent black businessman who was searched and Tasered after buying a luxury car previously linked to gun crime is suing police for damages.

Daniel Sylvester, a 53-year-old grandfather, bought the Mercedes ML four-wheel drive car from the girlfriend of a “violent drug-dealing gangster” in 2005, a court heard.

Over the space of just nine months in 2007 and 2008, he was stopped three times by police and, on one occasion, subjected to a horrific Taser ordeal.

The pain was so bad the 29-stone security company boss told Central London county court he thought he was dying. Mr Sylvester, of Edmonton, is suing the Met for damages for alleged assault and false imprisonment.

His barrister Rajeev Thacker told the court: “This is a case in which the police went completely over the top.”

The Met’s lawyers say the force used was justified and deny Mr Sylvester was fired at more than once with a Taser.

The court heard Mr Sylvester bought the car for £5,000 and took it to the police after finding a tiny hole in a window which he feared may have been the result of a gun shot . The damage turned out to have been caused by a ball bearing, but in the next few months he was stopped three times by police on anti-gun crime operations.

On the first occasion he was searched, but the second time, in October 2007, he was Tasered, he told the jury.

“The pain was nothing like I have ever had before,” he told the court.

“It’s like you’re dying... You can’t see and you can’t hear.

“The only thing they said before this happened was ‘out of the car now’.”

He got rid of the car after he was followed and stopped again the following year by armed police in Dalston.

Nothing was found during any of the searches of Mr Sylvester or the car.

The Met’s barrister, Mark Ley-Morgan, said the car’s previous owner was a “violent drug-dealing gangster”.

Contesting Mr Sylvester’s damages claim, he accused him of exaggerating his account. The hearing continues.

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