Police have launched an official review into the actions of an officer who attempted to detain a young skateboarder in Canterbury.

A complaint was made following the heated confrontation at the multi-storey car park in Station Road West, with footage of the incident later posted on Facebook.

Nazy Rai speaks about the incident (above) and the incident is caught on camera

The 90-second-clip shows Nazy Rai, 18, being physically detained after asking why he had to provide his details to the officer.

Police say the PC was called to the scene following reports of anti-social behaviour.

The video opens with the officer demanding the details of Nazy and his friend, who were skateboarding in the council-owned car park.

When asked why they need to provide them, the officer tells them they are committing an offence of anti-social behaviour.

Mr Rai - who filmed the discussion - replies: “You’re calling it anti-social behaviour, but we’re not here drinking or smoking, we’re just doing skating.”

The officer then asks “Are you going to let me talk young man?”, before grabbing him in an apparent attempt to detain him.

A struggle lasting almost a minute then follows, with Mr Rai pleading: “Why are you trying to arrest me? What have I done wrong? I’ll give you my details then.”

The officer eventually lets go of Mr Rai, who then runs away.

University for the Creative Arts student Nazy, of Strurry Road, told the Gazette: “We saw him walking up to us and we were packing up our stuff.

“But when he came over, he started talking about stuff happening in the city centre that I hadn’t been involved with.

“I thought he was going to say ‘move along lads’ and we would have walked away.

“If he gave us a reason, then we would have given him our details – but he just flipped.

“I then ran for it. I didn’t care for the fact he was an officer then because I got scared.

“I took every back alley I could to get back home to safety.

“When I got home, I was really stressed.

“I was really angry and I wanted the video to raise awareness for skateboarders.

“We were there in the first place because there’s no space for us to go.

“The spaces that are available are rubbish and the [skate park] in Thanington is unsafe – that’s why people prefer to skate on the streets.”

The footage sparked hundreds of comments online, with opinion divided about the actions of those involved.

Mr Rai has since spoken to officers, who visited him at his home, about the confrontation.

Kent Police confirmed a complaint was made about the officer’s actions, which are now subject to a formal review.

Insp Guy Thompson explained: “Following recent reports of anti-social behaviour and nuisance skateboarding in the Westgate area of Canterbury, an officer attended Station Road West on the afternoon of Thursday, March 11.

“The officer spoke to two teenagers who were skateboarding in the Station Road West car park and attempted to take their details.

“We have received a complaint concerning this matter and it will be subject to a formal review. It would be inappropriate to comment further until such a review has taken place.”

'Give them somewhere to skate'

The incident has reignited calls for the city council to help community groups establish a suitable skate park.

The authority has received complaints from residents claiming noise from skateboarders outside the Marlowe Theatre and in the Castle Street and Station Road West multi-storey car parks “is severely affecting their quality of life”.

FAR Academy CEO Brent Lewis believes the issues would be solved by the creation of a skate park in the city.

“We get calls from police all the time and it is becoming an issue because some of our young skaters around Canterbury have been fined. It’s completely wrong.

“There are massive problems between skateboarders and residents at the moment because of the noise.

“We’re trying to get a skate park set up in the area because the guys are getting hassled so much. If the council could find a place to skate, they’d be done with it.”

Mr Lewis says he has received as many as 20 reports of skateboarders being issued with fines in Canterbury.

He previously hoped to convert the former Homebase store in Wincheap into a park, but was unable to afford the monthly cost.

Council spokesman Rob Davies says this is “not an immediate priority” for the authority, but that it will be “willing to act as a sounding board to the FAR Academy as it goes about its search”.

“In the meantime, we are still in a lockdown and would therefore urge skateboarders to consider others and to stick to the government’s lockdown guidelines,” Mr Davies added.

“In the short term, we have issued Community Protection Notices against a minority of skateboarders as a last resort after they ignored our requests to find somewhere else to go.

“We are considering banning anti-social skateboarding in certain places under our new Public Spaces Protection Orders.

“Having said that, we recognise the need for a longer-term solution and that may well be an accessible skateboarding facility somewhere in Canterbury.

“The challenge is finding the right place and how it is paid for including maintenance and other costs into the future.”

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