KEY POINTS:
An investigation into alleged British police brutality, in which an officer repeatedly punched a young black woman, is to examine whether the incident was racially motivated.
Officer Anthony Mulhall said he used "brute force" to strike 19-year-old Toni Comer in the arm so she could be handcuffed during the arrest outside a nightclub in Sheffield in July.
The fracas was captured on a surveillance camera and showed Comer, now 20, being held down by two officers while Mulhall hit her five times.
An investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into the incident will examine whether the officer used excessive force and investigate whether the incident was racially motivated.
A commission spokesman stressed that the race element of the inquiry was only into the specific incident.
The constable, who admitted this week that he punched the woman "as hard as I was physically able", has been moved to a job away from the public.
South Yorkshire Police has defended its officer and said he was using a method to control violent suspects, adding that the force was "outraged" by the suggestion that the incident might have been racially motivated.
Comer, who is attempting to sue the force, admitted she was drunk on the night and vandalised a car after being thrown out of a nightclub. She said she suffered bruising to her arm, back of neck, above her eye, and to the side of her head after being arrested at about 2am and dragged along the ground with her trousers half-down.
Comer, who has a 2-year-old son said yesterday: "I thought police arrested people for doing things like that, not that they did it themselves. I would like to see some kind of justice so this never happens to anybody else."
Meredydd Hughes, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, said the full video showed there was "more to this case than meets the eye".
"We live in a difficult and dangerous world where many of my colleagues are assaulted on a daily basis."
- Independent
