The man arrested this week over the 2017 “Putney Pusher” attack has been released on bail until early September, with the Metropolitan Police confirming he remains under investigation over both the Putney Bridge incident and a separate drugs allegation.
It means a case the Met closed in 2018 as a dead end is active again, almost a decade on, with the suspect out of custody and a date in the autumn to answer bail.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said a 44-year-old man was arrested on Monday 15 June on suspicion of attempted grievous bodily harm over the 2017 incident.
He “has since been bailed pending further investigation in relation to all offences,” the Met told Putney.news, and told us his bail runs until early September.
While he was in police custody, the force said, he was also arrested on suspicion of possessing Class A and Class B drugs, and has been bailed on that allegation too. It is a second, separate matter.
What bail means
After an arrest, the police can hold someone without charge for up to 24 hours, rising to a maximum of 96 hours for a serious offence if senior officers and a court agree. At the end of that time they must either charge the person or release them.
When the police cannot charge someone in that window but want to keep investigating, they can release them on bail, with a date to return and, usually, conditions. That is different from being “released under investigation,” which carries no return date. The Met gave a September return date and referred to bail conditions, so the case is live and has a point at which it is expected to move towards a decision.
A closed case is not simply picked up again unless something has changed: new evidence, or old evidence re-examined in a way that was not possible before. So an arrest in a case shut in 2018 means something has shifted. The Met would not tell us what.
Putney.news asked the force to confirm the time and place of the arrest, whether bail conditions had been set, and what had prompted it to revisit the case. It declined, citing the ongoing investigation.
The 2017 attack drew national attention. On the morning of 5 May that year, a woman crossing Putney Bridge was pushed into the path of an oncoming bus, whose driver swerved in time. She escaped serious injury. CCTV of the moment was shared widely, police appealed for help that August, and in 2018 the investigation was closed, with the Met saying then that every line of inquiry had been exhausted and that it would reopen the case if new information came to light.
We reported the arrest last week. During the original inquiry, a man was arrested and then cleared after he showed he had not been in the country when it happened. The man arrested this month has not been charged, and is entitled to the presumption of innocence.
He is due to answer bail in early September. Bail can end in a charge, in further bail, or in no further action. We will report any development.
