justice for auditors

Police inspector Dean Gittoes guilty of assault on teenA police inspector has been found guilty of assaulting a 16-year-old who filmed him outside a police station.

Dean Gittoes, 49, had denied a charge of assault by beating but he was convicted at Cwmbran Magistrates' Court.

The court was shown footage filmed by the teenager outside Merthyr Tydfil police station in August 2021.

District Judge Sophie Toms said the inspector had "lost all rational thought" after seeing the boy filming.

In the footage, the teenager can be heard saying "I can't breathe" and "he's choking me" after being taken into the custody suite.

The incident was captured on a now-deleted YouTube video that was recorded by the youth, who claimed at the time to be "auditing" the station, but he was arrested by Insp Gittoes who said he could be a terrorist.

The term auditing refers to a global online community of people who record and upload videos of government buildings, such as police stations.