A 12-year-old boy was forced to the ground and handcuffed by South Wales Police officers during the seizure of an electric scooter in Pontardawe, Swansea Valley.
Mobile phone footage shows Zain Evans, dressed in pyjama trousers, a hoodie and a cycling helmet, helping an officer carry the scooter along an overgrown alley beside a disused chapel.
A boy filming the incident can be heard asking: “Are you taking his scooter? He’s only been walking it. He hasn’t driven it once.” The officer replies: “Oh, please. I wasn’t born yesterday. Stop lying.”
Zain then stands in the scooter’s path and says: “What are you doing with it. You’re not taking it. I’m not letting you – I’ve got school.”
A male officer approaches and orders him to move before taking hold of him from behind and telling him he is under arrest. The footage shows two officers pushing Zain against metal railings and wrestling him to the ground as he cries out: “No, please!”
His mother, Emily Evans, said the officers pulled his arms behind his back so forcefully that he heard a “pop”. Zain was taken to hospital in Port Talbot the following day, where his arm was placed in a sling.
Ms Evans also said he suffered cuts to the backs of his legs from broken glass on the ground. She said her son had been left nervous since the incident and had needed to sleep with her.
She said Zain had been taking the scooter to a friend’s house to have it examined after its electrics stopped working. He and two friends had then entered the abandoned church to explore, she said, insisting that he could not have been riding the scooter because it was broken.
Police found the children inside the building and escorted them outside before detaining Zain. Ms Evans said he was not formally arrested, despite an officer telling him he was under arrest in the footage.
She said police seized Zain’s scooter and phone, as well as his friend’s phone, and visited the friend’s farm the next day to take away another electric scooter.
Ms Evans said she was driving past when she saw her son being detained. “It absolutely broke me to the core,” she said. “There was broken glass on the floor, which they forced him onto, cutting the back of his leg. They also flung his arms around his back so hard that Zain heard a pop.”
She added: “My kids have been brought up fairly. If they do wrong, they are punished. But what the police did here was completely out of order.”
Ms Evans said South Wales Police gave her a number to call about the return of the scooters, but staff at the compound were unaware that the vehicles had been seized. She also claimed the force initially believed only two officers had been involved, rather than three.
South Wales Police refers incident for review
A South Wales Police spokesman said officers had attended a suspected incident of criminal damage at a disused church on Swansea Road, Pontardawe, at about 2.15pm on Wednesday.
“While attending this incident, officers conducted searches of individuals believed to have committed offences and seized an e-scooter which was believed to have been used illegally,” the spokesman said.
The force said it was aware of footage circulating on social media and understood community concern about the use of force. The incident has been referred to its Professional Standards Department for review, and officers have contacted Zain’s mother.
