I'm not so sure I was after a "fairy tale answer". What I'm looking for is something he or his friends could do that I haven't thought of. For example, there no uniforms involved, but the report claims there were. The only uniform was standing well off to one side. The report also repeatedly states they identified themselves as police to the first person - who himself thought he was intervening in some kind of street assault and denies that they identified themselves as police - but doesn't mention any such thing about the second.
Lawyers, no matter how skilled, are going to be limited in resources. If the accused's friends can go to the bar and talk to people, they might get, for example, that the only uniformed police officer was standing about ten meters away from the fracas. Since the report states that there were uniformed police involved the whole time, that would cast doubt on their version.
And I would think this has to be done fairly quickly while the incident is still fresh in people's minds.
The sort of genuinely useful replies that would be possible, given the information, would be things like precedents anyone is aware of in which it's happened that police failed to properly identify themselves, what sort of things would be valuable in witness statements, would have identified the police as police.
What's actually useful is something like the mention of batons, etc. As these aren't mentioned in the report, and the first person wasn't in cuffs, that could well go in favour of the honest misunderstanding argument - batons weren't deployed at the time, cuffs weren't out, no one was holding a radio... and witnesses can confirm all of that.
That's the sort of thing that needs to be recorded in witness statements quickly. The lawyer, like most any lawyer, isn't going to be doing much on it until he has a bit more information.
Even if all you have to go on is that there were plainclothes officers and someone made an honest mistake, it should be possible to offer a reasonable reply. Eg, This is what they have to do to identify themselves; here's a similar case or two; this is how he might strengthen his defense; what might be a good approach here is X - I'm thinking honest misunderstanding is going to work a lot better than saying, "Those ba*****d piggies are f*******g lying!"
Because what I'm guessing here is that that would be his best shot. Anyone who sees an assault and tries intervene is doing something that would be appropriate for any reasonable person. It's well possible the police intended to identify themselves, but in the midst of struggling with two people already, just, shall we say, overlooked that bit. Another person had already, by his version, failed to understand that they were, in fact, police, and then a second person came along and had the same impression.
Believe it or not, such things happen in the real world. Sometimes the real world is different from what goes on in training or what's meant to go on according to official procedure. The reality is that my friend, who tried to intervene peacefully, is now charged with a serious offense, and I'd like to see him get clear of that. My thought is that his best shot is to sow reasonable doubt that the it was clearly a police situation, which I think he can do if he's able to provide credible witnesses to give another version, such where people were standing, what anyone might have heard, maybe even if anything was recorded.
But I don't have experience with this, nor do I have the legal knowledge. I don't what's involved in getting the CCTV footage if there is any. I don't know much about finding witnesses.
No matter how good the lawyer may be, he has other cases. He probably can't send a few people to go visit the local pubs and have friendly chats with the staff, etc.
Those are things I can think of. I was hoping someone, maybe someone who's actually able to provide some useful suggestions might chime in.
