This footage was filmed and produced 19 October 2023.

The mother of a 13-year-old child who was surrounded by armed police after an officer mistook his water pistol for a real gun has said she feels “betrayed” by the Metropolitan Police.

The boy suffered soft-tissue injuries after he was rammed off his bike by a police van and handcuffed as he was confronted by marksmen in Hackney, east London, in July.

In a statement read out on her behalf at a press conference on Thursday, the boy’s mother said the incident had been a “deeply traumatic experience” for their entire family, adding that she believed it would not have occurred had her son “been a white 13-year-old boy”.

Campaign group, The Alliance for Police Accountability (APA) condemned the treatment of the boy, saying his brightly-coloured water pistol was unmistakably a toy and that the incident demonstrated the “adultification” of black children.