2 months ago
.png)
This is the shocking moment police destroyed a south London cafe in a raid based on false information, leaving the confused owners to pay for the repairs.
Officers from the Metropolitan Police swarmed a Chefs Delight on Sydenham Road after reports of two men being held against their will.
The force smashed open a glass door and burst through a side wall to find a completely empty café, proving their intelligence to be wrong.
Owners Adam, Sam, and Sami Dinc - aged 43, 42, and 40 - were told by officers about their Section 17 powers to search a property without a warrant, but were given little explanation as to why.
Over a month later, the family has forked out over £1,000 in repair costs, including for an emergency front door fix, but the Met Police are yet to provide a penny.
The brothers - whose family have run the café for nearly 50 years - also say they have lost business due to an information vacuum left by police about what actually happened.
Officers from the Metropolitan Police swarmed a Chefs Delight on Sydenham Road after reports of two men being held against their will
The force smashed open a glass door and burst through a side wall to find a completely empty cafe, proving their intelligence to be wrong
Over a month later, the family has forked out over £1,000 in repair costs, including for an emergency front door fix, but the Met Police are yet to provide a penny
What are the Section 17 powers?
Section 17 provides a wide-ranging power to enter and search premises without a warrant in order to arrest persons or to save life, limb or property.
So far as the entry and search for persons is concerned, reasonable grounds for believing that the person is on the premises must exist.
There is a limitation on search in respect of separate dwellings.
Like all search powers, it is a search only to the extent reasonably required for the purpose for which the power was exercised.
Sam says he and his brothers had only closed the shop a few hours before on January 15, when he got a call from their chef who lives above the shop.
He said: 'He [the chef] said you need to come back urgently. There's helicopter. There's police both sides of the road, police cars, they are chasing someone upstairs.
When Sam got to the shop, he found police lounging at the café tables next to a gaping hole in the wall, whole ceiling tiles on the floor, the smashed glass front door of his chef's flat, and parts of his broken shutter system hanging down.
Following the false information, police said both the men were found safe and well elsewhere.
Officers have since arrested a man on suspicion of blackmail and possession of an offensive weapon, but he has since been released with no further action.
Meanwhile, the brothers are bleeding cash on the heating due to gaps in their now wonky door frame, which they claim got damaged in the raid.
A mural of historic Sydenham, which adorned the broken wall, also got wrecked in the raid, which Sam says could cost over £1,000 to reinstall.
'It's our reputation, people are asking questions,' Sam said. 'Why are the police here? What are you guys doing? People put stuff on social media and Facebook and it's damaging our reputation.'
Some of the comments online have included a man, apparently posing as someone with insider knowledge, falsely claiming it was a 'drugs raid' and the café had been 'on their radar' for months.
Another person wrongly suggested the police cordon meant there was a 'dead body or someone harmed'.
The brothers want a public apology from the Met Police which outlines their reason for breaking into the café in the hope it will quash these false rumours about murders and drugs.
The owners of the Chefs Delight on Sydenham Road say they have lost business due to an information vacuum left by police about what actually happened
Following the false information, police said both the men were found safe and well elsewhere
Sam said: 'We have lost customers in the last two months, it's our reputation affected.'
The brothers - who have three families to support - say they can provide a builders quote for the repairs at any time, but claim the police have said they are still investigating the incident.
A Met Police spokesperson said: 'Police were in Sydenham Road SE26 on January 15 after a call at around 19:00hrs that evening expressing concern for the welfare of two men thought to be potentially being held against their will.
'Road closures were put in place. Both men were found safe and well elsewhere.'
MailOnline have also asked the Met whether it will be financially contributing to the cafe's repairs and what support will be available to the business from the force. They have yet to provide a comment to these questions.
