A PLAIN-CLOTHED police officer has been jailed for 18 months for kicking a Downham man in the head while he was being restrained.

Police Constable Edward Prince, 31, was found guilty of causing actual bodily harm, by a jury at Southwark Crown Court today.

During the trial the court heard Prince, who was based in Croydon, had kicked Nyron Games’s head “like a football”.

Prince became involved in a pursuit of Mr Games on November 6, 2009 after officers had initially tried to arrest him for breaching his deportation bail orders.

Mr Games who was aged 27 at the time, was taken down by officers in Brighton Road and while four of them tried to handcuff him, Prince ran up to Games and kicked him.

He was later heard to have told Mr Games: “If this was not on CCTV you would have got worse. You deserved what you got.”

Mr Games, of Farmfield Road, was taken by ambulance to hospital where he required stitches for cuts on his face. He has since been deported to Trinidad.

The Met’s director of professional standards Commander Peter Spindler said: "All Met employees are expected to behave professionally, ethically and with the utmost integrity at all times.

“Any instance where the conduct of our staff is alleged to have fallen below the standards of behaviour expected is treated extremely seriously by the MPS and will be robustly investigated.”

He added:“Today's sentence sends a clear message that this kind of behaviour by a public servant is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated in British society.”