A French riot cop has walked free after beating up a British volunteer NGO worker in Calais and then lying in the police report about the incident.

The incident took place in the north-western French port city of Calais, in the Pas-de-Calais department on 31st July 2018 and now the trial of three police officers has concluded, with none of them going to jail.

One police officer, a CRS (French riot police) was given a suspended sentence of 18 months in prison and was banned from working as a police officer for two years.

His two subordinates were acquitted.

The police officer who was given the suspended sentence was found guilty of physically assaulting the British NGO worker, named as Tom Ciotkowski.

The police officer claimed in his report after the incident that he had been forced to push Ciotkowski away and that he had fallen over on top of him when he grabbed onto him and pulled him to the ground.

This version of the facts was corroborated by two other police officers despite the fact that they were sitting inside a police van and were therefore unable to witness the incident.

Ciotkowski, who works for the Help Refugees NGO, was charged with assaulting a police officer but he was acquitted in 2019 after footage filmed by the NGO workers was shown to the court.

The footage clearly showed the riot cop pushing Ciotkowski, who falls over on the road just as a lorry is passing by.

French internal affairs then began investigating the three police officers, who have not been named.

The Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutors office demanded a year in prison and a five-year ban from working as a police officer.

Prosecutor Dorothee Perrier underlined how important it is to have, as a prosecutor, clear, “reliable” reports from the police.