This page documents what occurred during my complaint review through Avon & Somerset Police Professional Standards, and identifies discrepancies between the evidence available and the conclusions recorded in the final report.
The investigator was Melanie Barton, a former beat officer who later moved into a Professional Standards role handling complaint investigations. In that capacity, Melanie Barton assessed evidence including body-worn camera footage and written statements relating to my complaint.
What the report states, and what the footage shows
Body-worn camera footage shows an officer seizing my prescribed medical cannabis and refusing to return my prescribed morphine. The same footage also shows the officer removing the pharmacy label from the medication container.
Despite this, the Professional Standards report produced under Melanie Barton’s investigation states that my morphine was not seized. This is difficult to reconcile with what appears in the footage, particularly because the report references that same body-worn video, indicating it was reviewed during Melanie Barton’s complaint investigation.
Put simply: the evidence existed, it was available for assessment, and the written conclusion does not appear to reflect what the footage shows.
The report accepts that the officer seized my medical cannabis, and records a justification that it was taken because I did not provide evidence that it was lawfully prescribed.
My account, which I contend is supported by the body-worn footage, is that I attempted to show prescription evidence at the time and was prevented from doing so. The footage records the officer telling me to “pipe down” while I was trying to show my prescriptions, which had the practical effect of stopping me from providing the evidence the report later says I failed to provide.
This detail matters because the Professional Standards report prepared by Melanie Barton quotes the “pipe down” remark, indicating it was identified and noted during her review of the body-worn video.
Alongside the footage, I submitted a detailed written statement setting out the wider context of the incident, including credible threats made by my parents to petrol-bomb my home. This context is not addressed in the findings. There is no assessment of it, nor any explanation for its exclusion from the report.
The outcome of the complaint process did not resolve these inconsistencies. Instead, they remain unaddressed within the official Professional Standards record.
I am pursuing a small-claims action concerning what I contend are factual inaccuracies and material omissions in the Professional Standards report produced under Melanie Barton’s investigation. If the matter proceeds, the report’s author will ultimately be required to explain how evidence that was referenced and available for review resulted in conclusions that appear to contradict it.
A Bristol Live article frames Melanie Barton as a hero of Professional Standards. A story of integrity, ethics, and doing the right thing under pressure.
In my case, the record points in the opposite direction. I claim that Melanie Barton signed off an account that does not truthfully reflect the evidence she had access to, including body-worn video that the report itself references. That is not a minor discrepancy. It goes to the credibility of the Professional Standards process and the integrity of the report that bears her name.