Exposure incident on Strand on the Green W4

Good morning, 

I wanted to give you all an update on an incident that occurred on Strand on the Green on 6th May where a male was alleged to have exposed himself to members of the public and was arrested, not charged and released. He was subsequently arrested the next day by the Brentford East team for breach of prison release and again released this time by the court.

We are acutely aware that there was a great deal of concern around this incident particularly as the incident was captured on CCTV and witness statements were obtained and yet the CPS declined to charge in custody. I was extremely disappointed by this decision and have personally raised this case with senior Police and CPS leadership as well as the local MP Andy Slaughter who is on the Justice Committee at Parliament. Part of the problem is due to a new Sentencing Act 2026 which has been causing us issues and I am hoping this case can be used as an example as to these difficulties we are facing.

Escalating the matter though would not necessarily help deal with the risk this particular individual poses, we needed to get him back in custody to get him charged, but without further evidence we would not be able to arrest him. I personally reviewed the case and trawled the available CCTV and was able to identify and track down an additional witness. Thanks to the bravery of this witness in giving a statement to what was undoubtably a traumatic incident for her we had the additional evidence we needed. We conducted a man hunt for the suspect and were able to track him down and arrest him in a matter of hours on Friday 15th. 

A 52 year old male of no fixed abode has now been charged and remanded for Exposure as well as Assault on Police for an incident that occurred in custody. He appeared yesterday at Court where he was remanded to prison pending a further bail application hearing which is being opposed by Police and CPS. Hopefully this will ease concerns you have as residents and show that we as a Safer Neighbourhoods take matters of Violence Against Woman and Girls (VAWG) extremely seriously and will relentlessly pursue those offenders within our cluster of Wards.

Once again, I thank and applaud the victims in the case who gave statements, without which we would not have been able to take this individual off the streets.

Many thanks

Sgt O’Donnell 164WA