Brent Naylor, 56, from Finsbury Park, north London, was arrested after he was identified following a Metropolitan Police appeal – but was later released without charge
An innocent man wrongly accused of masturbating at a woman on a bus has opened up about the violence and verbal abuse he has suffered. Brent Naylor, from Finsbury Park, north London, won a £5k pay-out from police after he was arrested over the indecent exposure incident.
The 56-year-old was ‘identified’ following a Metropolitan Police appeal – despite not matching the description of the actual sticky handed bandit. Met Officers soon realised they had the wrong man but the damage was done – as neighbours saw him being nicked.
Brent says he was subjected to verbal and physical attacks since he was wrongly arrested for the indecent exposure offence he did not commit. The Londoner, who is disabled, claims he has been assaulted, evicted from his home and even banned from his favourite pub since being handcuffed by six officers at his front door.
He said: “They pinned it all on me without actually investigating at all. It was disgusting. The description of the guy was six foot.
“I’m 5’8. I’m the slimmest person alive and this guy was fat. Now I don’t trust the police. They have put my life in danger. They are horrible people.”
Mr Naylor’s ordeal began after someone claimed he was the man in a witness appeal for indecent exposure on a 393 bus towards Kentish Town in May 2021.
The man – who was over six feet tall and described as being “chubby” with dark brown hair – was reported as having got off in Islington.
When police released a CCTV image, someone called up and gave Mr Naylor’s name.
Despite looking nothing like the man in the shared image, officers arrived unannounced and arrested him in front of his neighbours.
But even after being cleared of any wrongdoing, Mr Naylor says he is still routinely heckled and threatened in the street.
Just before this Christmas, he was hospitalised after being struck over the head with what’s believed to have been a bottle.
“It’s not nice, getting called a nonce,” said Mr Naylor. “It’s embarrassing. I know everyone around here. There are still people after me. I was assaulted just before Christmas.”
After he was reported, police researched Mr Naylor, revealing he had short greying hair and was significantly shorter and thinner than the offender.
But they listed him as a “viable suspect” anyway.
Then, in November 2021, he was paid a visit by arresting officers.
“Six police officers turned up on my doorstep,” Mr Naylor explained. “They said they had a search warrant for my place. It was a complete shock.”
Mr Naylor is registered as disabled due to nail-patella syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes constant problems with his bones and joints.
“I can’t straighten my arms,” he said, adding that being handcuffed had caused long-lasting pain.
“They knew I was disabled. Why handcuff me at all? There were six of them and one of me.”
It was only after he’d been in custody for more than seven hours that a more senior officer looked at him and realised he didn’t resemble the suspect at all.
Police documents said the suspect was of “large build, with a rotund beer belly stomach”.
Whereas, officers recorded Mr Naylor as being “very slim, with a 26 to 28-inch waist”.
“It took [the senior officer] two seconds to realise it wasn’t me,” Mr Naylor said.
“How could the others think it was me?”
He was immediately released.
However, his ordeal was far from over, as neighbours had witnessed his arrest.
Mr Naylor says that following his arrest, his landlord served him with an eviction notice, and he was also later threatened by a gang of men who “frog-marched” him out of his favourite pub.
After that, he said, he was barred from the boozer – not because staff thought he was guilty, but because they said they “couldn’t guarantee my safety”.
Mr Naylor admitted the injustice still upsets him.
“Why should I leave?” he said. “If they cause trouble, they should be barred. Why me? I’ve been stalked. People followed me home, calling me a nonce – and I had done nothing wrong.”
Just a few weeks ago, he was cracked over the head with what is believed to have been a bottle in an attack in the street.
“I can’t remember getting hit,” Mr Naylor explained. “I just woke up in the hospital and saw blood on the bed.”
Despite the serious assault, Mr Naylor says he didn’t bother calling the police.
“I have no faith in their ability to investigate it properly,” he said.
Mr Naylor later took legal action against the Met Police, hiring lawyers from MK Law to fight his case.
MK Law caseworker Duncan Burtwell said: “[Mr Naylor] is an absolutely lovely guy and, at the time this all happened, was clearly also a vulnerable person.
“There was a clear and obvious way of distinguishing him from the suspect, such that he shouldn’t have been arrested if the police had conducted their task with due diligence.”
The lawsuit also revealed that police officers had failed to secure blood and semen samples left on the bus by the actual offender, which will make it harder to catch him going forward.
The Met recently settled Mr Naylor’s case out of court, paying him £5,000 in damages as well as his legal costs.
But he says it was “never about the money”, adding: “It was more of a cause. In my opinion, it’s abuse. The police abused me.
“I still get nightmares and panic attacks. I hear police sirens go by and I think they’re coming for me.”
Meanwhile, the offender remains at large and Mr Naylor worries his offending could escalate as a result of him getting away with the 2021 incident.
He fears the flasher will graduate to rape or murder, all because the police “didn’t do their jobs properly”.
The Met said it had paid damages “without admission of liability”.
“There was no evidence of any officer wrongdoing or misconduct,” a spokesman said.
The force press office said it was not aware of any further arrests over the bus incident.
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