Met Police pay out £15,000 to man arrested after stopping to give CPR to dying gun shot victim
Nathan O'Brien was trying to save Marcus Innocent's life - but after Innocent was dead, he was held for 38 hours in connection with the murder
A GOOD Samaritan arrested after stopping to try and save the life of a dying man has received £15,000 and an apology from the Met Police.
Nathan O’Brien, 23, performed CPR on Marcus Innocent after he was shot twice in London.
The trained first-aider spent more than two hours with the 35-year-old victim - shot for “no reason” by a gang in a case of mistaken identity - before being arrested for his murder.
After a four-year legal battle he has finally received a letter of apology from the Met - and a thank-you for trying to save a life.
Cops offered £15,000 in compensation to settle the case out of court.
Nathan, a former youth worker from Woolwich, south London, told how the incident has left him with debilitating PTSD.
He has also lost faith in the police.
Nathan told The Sun: “I feel so relieved that this has finally come to an end after four years.
“All I did was try and help save a man’s life and the police hauled me in for murder.
“I know that the police do good work most of the time, but this has really knocked my faith in the justice system.”
His friend Jermel Crawford, 26, who was travelling with Nathan at the time, was also arrested.
He received £10,000 in compensation for his wrongful treatment.
Nathan had a criminal record of five public order offences and one criminal damage conviction, but had begun to turn his life around at the time of the incident.
The then 19-year-old nevertheless felt continually targeted by police.
Just months earlier, he was charged with witness intimidation, and his bail conditions were to not enter the borough of Woolwich except to visit his solicitor.
The charges were later dropped in January 2015 at Woolwich Crown Court when police realised it was a case of mistaken identity.
But on the day of Mr Innocent’s murder, Nathan was visiting his solicitor.
After the meeting he met his pal Jermel and they were driving back to Lewisham, where he was staying with his sister.
Nathan told The Sun of the moment he spotted the commotion.
He said: “On the way through Woolwich from my solicitor’s I saw a group of young kids standing around a pair of legs.
“I pulled over to see if I could help. I quickly realised that he was dying.
“Marcus was shot twice at close range with a shotgun, it was quite messy, but the first thing I did was tell the kids to move away, then I told my friends to call 999 and then I started giving him CPR.”
Nathan stayed at the crime scene to provide a witness statement, even after Marcus was pronounced dead.
But he said he did not want to go to the police station after the trauma that he had witnessed.
He said: “The mood towards me changed when me and my friends weren’t willing to go to the police station, which was because of the emotion and exhaustion of what we’d just witnessed.
“We were happy providing statements at the scene. Why would we hang around to help if we’d just killed the victim? Do the police have no common sense?”
Nathan was taken into custody at Lewisham Police Station, forced to give DNA, and held for 38 hours.
He was then charged with breaching his bail conditions and taken to court in a prison bus - still with blood on his hands from trying to help his friends.
The charges were dropped but he had to get the bus home in clothes provided by the police force, as his own belongings were bagged for ‘evidence’.
He said: “The decisions that the police made that day were not human.
“I’ve been left to suffer from PTSD, I was forced to leave my job, all because I tried to help out a man on the street.
“It’s taken four years to get the justice I deserve for being treated so terribly. I want people to know what happened to me.”
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A letter to Nathan from Debbie Ralph, Head of Misconduct and Hearings in the Met Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards, said: “I have no hesitation in acknowledging that you had no involvement whatsoever in Mr Innocent’s murder.
“Moreover, the MPS is grateful to you for taking it upon yourself to try and save Mr Innocent’s life by commencing CPR and continuing to assist with first aid after police had arrived on the scene.
“Police officers dealing with horrific incidents such as this, often have to make dynamic and difficult decisions as to whether certain persons might have been involved in the offence and should therefore be arrested.
“In this instance a decision was made, in good faith, to arrest you.
“However, in all the circumstances, arguably you should not have been arrested, and for that, on behalf of the MPS, I apologise.”
Nathan, who is still signed off work with PTSD, added: “Why has it taken them four years to apologise? They’ve wasted taxpayers’ money fighting this case. It’s a disgrace.”
Gang members Jack Brennan, Patrick Brennan, Richard Brennan, Perry Sutton and Sonny Murphy were jailed for their involvement in Mr Innocent’s death.
Police said the men had wanted to confront a rival gang but Mr Innocent was not a gang member.
Officers said up to 20 men had travelled in six cars from Kidbrooke to Woolwich. Mr Innocent was dragged into a car park where he was shot at close range and died at the scene on 19 November, 2012.
Det Con Toby Carroll, of the Metropolitan Police, said of the murder: “Marcus Innocent was not involved in gangs, however he was wrongly set upon by what we believe was a 20-strong gang over a feud they had with another man, about a broken car window.
“He was punched, kicked and shot dead for no reason.” Fourteen people were charged in connection with Mr Innocent’s death.
Last night Scotland Yard told The Sun: “The Metropolitan Police has settled a civil claim brought by three men for wrongful arrest following the murder of a 35-year-old man in Woolwich in November 2012.
“A settlement was reached for an undisclosed sum and Mr Nathan O’Brien has been given an apology.”