UK deaths in custody Theresa May delayed report England
United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) Injustice Demo 2015
A report commissioned by the prime minister herself highlights the breadth of the problems and makes sound recommendations. She should follow them

It was many months ago that Dame Elish Angiolini completed her review into deaths and serious injuries in police custody, which was commissioned by Theresa May when she was home secretary. It was finally made public this week.

During the unacceptably long delay, the charity Inquest reported at least eight deaths involving restraint or Taser and other use of force, and five deaths of other people who "became unwell" or were found unresponsive while in police custody. During the same period, a number of critical conclusions in police misconduct hearings and trials have, yet again, questioned the ability of the police to police themselves.


Comment: The release of the report was delayed by 15 months.


The big question now is: will the Home Office act on the report's sweeping recommendations? Between 1990 and 2016, Inquest has recorded more than 5,600 deaths in prison and police custody in England and Wales. Those who monitor and report on both systems would argue that to be in custody now is provenly more dangerous than at any time since those figures began to be collated. The increase in reported mental health problems and drug and alcohol misuse is the backdrop for the rise in the death and injury toll. During the 11 years between 2004/05 and 2014/15, 47% of those who died in, or following, police custody suffered mental health problems, and 82% had links to drug and alcohol misuse.

The report argues that the use of police custody for children detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 should be brought to an end, with all NHS trusts required to make sufficient provision of health-based places of safety to meet this requirement. We would have urged Angiolini to go further. A police or prison cell is no place for those with mental illness problems. Many more secure beds must be found, whatever the cost.

A large slice of the 292-page report is focused on the use, or misuse, of restraint. We have reported on far too many deaths of both adults and children who have died as a result of being restrained while in custody. It is no surprise to learn that there is no consistency in restraint training across the 43 police forces in England and Wales. The report says that all officers should have it rammed home to them that restraint can lead to death, and that they should be fully aware that restraining somebody in a heightened physical and mental state is particularly dangerous.

In the years we have covered deaths in custody, a recurring theme has been the frustration and anger of the families of those who died in the care of the state. In almost every case, they have felt detached, alienated even, from the process of finding the truth as to how their relatives died. To the report's credit, there are quotes from relatives who have lost loved ones, which will make uncomfortable reading for those charged with steering these families through the legal and psychological minefield that awaits them. In particular, the failings of the police and their appointed watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

For anybody with a passing interest in deaths in police custody, their complaints are horribly familiar. "We believed it [the investigation] would be independent, but it was never independent," said one person. "Our case was played out in the media ... It took three to four days for the IPCC to contact his mother," said another. Perhaps most recognisable of all: "I've read 23 police statements, all with the same sentence. Just by reading it you can see it's conferring."

Time and time again we have seen police officers interviewed as witnesses, when they should have been seen as potential suspects; how they conferred before making their statements; how they are rarely suspended when facing investigation or misconduct charges; how they have been allowed to retire as a means of avoiding investigations (though legislation has recently been introduced to stop this from happening). The word of a police officer has too often been taken at face value - so, for example, after the death of Azelle Rodney, the Crown Prosecution Service simply accepted that the officer had an honest belief in the need for lethal force without testing his account against the scientific evidence.


Comment: Gone are the days of the local 'bobby on the beat' who patrolled neighbourhoods and was known by name, nowadays the public has good reason to question those entrusted with enforcing the law:

In looking at the accountability of police, one bald, shocking fact stands out - there has never been a successful prosecution for manslaughter following a death in custody, despite unlawful killing verdicts in coroner's inquests. The last time a police officer was successfully prosecuted for the death of somebody in custody was in 1969, when the two Leeds police officers responsible for the death of David Oluwale - the first black man to die in police custody in the UK - were found guilty of assault and given a prison sentence. The lack of any convictions in the proceeding 48 years seems to have given police officers a sense that they can take life with impunity. For this to change, the recommendations of this report must be followed, to the last letter of the law the system persistently flouts.

If May does act on the report she was once so keen to set in motion, it might even do something to salvage her reputation.