A Nigerian student has received £4,000 (N1,923,480) in damages after being placed in a chokehold by South Wales police who mistook him for a burglar.
Uyioghosa Aigbe was wrongly held on the floor and arrested by South Wales police officers as he waited for a taxi in Cardiff city centre at 5 am in September last year after earlier walking into a public building looking for a toilet.
The 31-year-old had only been in Britain for two weeks at the time, Daily Mail reports.
In his civil claim against police, he said: “I was handcuffed without some sort of communication to tell me what was happening – what I’m meant to have done.”
The Nigeria-born student was taken to a police station and held for five hours.
Last month, protests sprung in the United States and across the world after a black man, George Floyd, died during a chokehold by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Mr Aigbe was released under investigation but police seized personal money he had been carrying. He said he also visited the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport where he was told he had soft tissue damage.
South Wales Police later confirmed they would take no further action after realising no burglary had taken place.
Aigbe, who is studying at the University of South Wales, was later awarded £4,000 and legal costs. He has since returned to his studies.
