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An innocent train passenger is confronted by armed police at Bournemouth train station
An innocent train passenger is confronted by armed police at Bournemouth train station. Photograph: Bournemouth News
An innocent train passenger is confronted by armed police at Bournemouth train station. Photograph: Bournemouth News

Commuter mistakenly held at gunpoint by police

This article is more than 15 years old

An innocent commuter who was detained by police at gunpoint in a shocking case of mistaken identity has described how he "stepped off the train and into a really bad dream".

Nzube Udezue, a 21-year-old recent graduate from Oxford University, was ordered to the ground, handcuffed and arrested by a team of armed police officers at Bournemouth station on Saturday, in front of dozens of fellow travellers.

A spokesman for Dorset police insisted tonight that the man they had mistakenly detained had nothing more to say on the matter.

But writing on his blog, Udezue, a computer science student known to friends by his rap name, Zuby, painted a very different picture.

Udezue said officers explained that – as a black man wearing a black T-shirt with orange writing - he matched the description of a man involved in a suspected firearms incident, which took place in another part of the country, earlier in the day.

"When I woke up this Saturday morning, I could happily say that I'd managed to get through (almost) 22 years of my life without any real incident with the police. I could also say that I'd never had a gun pointed at me," he said.

"Little did I know that by 6.10pm. I'd be lying face down on the ground, handcuffed, with several submachine guns pointed at me and the entire county's specialist police firearms unit on me."

The former student, whose social networking page was filled with messages of support last night, said the ordeal had left him feeling "shocked, confused, scared and embarrassed all at the same time".

A dramatic image of the moment he was ordered to the ground was released yesterday, prompting comparisons with the case of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian man mistakenly shot dead by police after the failed July 21 bomb attacks. But until now Udezue's identity had not been known.

Witnesses had described how a team of ten officers, some armed, blocked off the exits as the train approached before arresting Udezue.

In a statement, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said today it deemed the actions of Dorset police "appropriate and proportionate to the circumstances".

Rather than mount a full investigation, the IPCC decided it would merely "supervise" Dorset police's internal inquiry. No other action would be taken, a spokesman said.

Udezue, who has lived for much of his life in Saudi Arabia and is described by friends as a committed Christian, was apprehended after being wrongly identified by a British Transport Police officer.

The firearm incident that promoted Hampshire police to circulate a description of a possible "suspect" to other forces took place at a shopping centre in Basingstoke shopping centre. Udezue boarded his train in Southampton, 32 miles (52 km) away.

"The description was passed through Hampshire, Dorset and the British Transport Police and boom," Udezue said, "a plain clothes officer sees me sitting on the train (happily listening to my iPod and unaware of my impending doom), alerts HQ that 'the gunman is on the train' (the GUNMAN??)"

Udezue, a former public school student and up-and-coming hip-hop artist profiled in Oxford University's student newspaper, had spent Saturday promoting and selling his music in Southampton.

A YouTube video of one Udezue's songs features him walking down New College Lane in Oxford, leading fellow students as they chant his lyrics.

He said he decided to return to his home in Bournemouth. "5.24pm, I hop onto the train back to Bournemouth, looking forward to a hardcore gym session. 6.09pm, the train pulls into Bournemouth station and all hell is about to break loose. The next 30 seconds was like a blur."

He recalled officers shouting at him to get on the floor and place his hands behind his head. "It took me a couple of seconds to realise that it was ME that all those guns were aimed at."

"Next thing you know I'm being led to the staff room at the station where they search me again and tell me that I'm under arrest for allegedly assaulting someone with a firearm in Basingstoke ... BASINGSTOKE???"

"Again, I try to explain to them that they've got the wrong person and even show them my return ticket from Southampton to Bournemouth, but they insist on marching me out of the station, cuffed like I'm an armed convict, and into their police car."

He continued: "I still think that I'm having a bad dream as I continuously explain to them that I'm really just an innocent musician and university graduate (with no criminal record) and that this whole thing is one REALLY big mistake. They're still not convinced though. They radio someone and say that 'the suspect has been apprehended'."

Udezue concluded that the experience had left him feeling traumatised. "And to think that I was gonna wear a blue T-shirt this morning."

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