The fight broke out during a High School Musical-themed event at a London cocktail bar
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This is the moment a fight broke out between a group of off-duty police officers and a mum and her daughters in a London cocktail bar.
CCTV footage showed Rose Webb, 58, and her daughters Billie Jo Jackson, 35, Emma Dee Jackson, 34, and Casey Jackson, 32, in a brawl with five officers from the Territorial Support Group unit (TSG).
The two groups wrestled, swung punches and pulled each other's hair at the London Cocktail Club on Shaftesbury Avenue during a High School Musical-themed event in October 2022.
The police officers – Tanisha Whitlock, Binal Valji, Daniella Andrean, Megan Pearson and Bethan Thomas – were seated next to Webb and her family before the trouble started.
Both groups had been playing musical bingo and drinking prosecco when the fight broke out, Wood Green Court heard.
A jury found Webb and her three daughters not guilty of affray after more than 12 hours of deliberations.
The five officers have not faced any charges after a Met Police review found no misconduct issues were identified.
The court heard that Pc Whitlock's dancing had "seemed to annoy" Webb, which cause the family group to move away from the officers.
But tensions flared when Webb passed the group of officers on the way to the toilet.
Pc Whitlock alleged that Webb attacked her "completely out of the blue" in what she described to the jury as an "unprovoked homophobic attack".
She claimed the mother-of-three had called her a "f****** lesbian" as she allegedly dragged her to the floor by pulling her hair while allegedly punching at her head before her daughters joined in.
Webb and her daughters did not give evidence during the trial but said they acted in self-defence and denied charges of affray.
Prosecutor Alex Balancy told the jury: “The whole thing erupted into an almighty melee. Violence took place, kicking, punching, pulling of hair, choking that was not warranted, that was not necessary and these defendants, under the influence of alcohol, went over the top.”
The court heard Pc Whitlock said in a police statement two days after the incident that she'd had "nothing to do" with the defendants before the brawl kicked off, yet CCTV showed her dancing with Webb and Billie Jo Jackson.
When questioned about the contradiction, she said: “My memory was scarce because I had hit my head and been punched several times.”
Cross examining Pc Whitlock, Mr Thomas, the representative for Bille Jo said: “You are strutting around as if you own the place. What was a public room has become the TSG dance room.”
Mr Thomas added the officers were entitled to get drunk but it “led them to behave like territorial and entitled bullies”.
In his closing speech he said Pc Whitlock’s behaviour “fell well below how a police officer should behave even off-duty”.
Billie Jo Jackson works in water safety at Hammersmith Hospital while Casey Jackson is employed by a property firm with celebrity clients and Webb holds a managerial role in a business.
The CPS initially refused to release the CCTV footage because it said three of the five defendants were "reluctant" about its publication.
However, the judge later agreed to release the footage, citing the public interest defence.
