1 February 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Musician found dead after fleeing police (inquest hears)

originally by: The Star
published: 1st February 2012

A musician was found dead in a Sheffield canal five days after fleeing a police search, his inquest heard. Wayne Hamilton, of Albert Road, Heeley, ran after officers stopped friend Lewis Trotman’s car on Shirland Lane, Attercliffe, Sheffield, in the early hours of June 10, 2010.

His body was found in the nearby Sheffield and Tinsley Canal five days later. Read 4WardEver UK case profile >

A Sheffield jury inquest yesterday heard Mr Trotman say police started to follow the bandmates as they returned to their Attercliffe recording studio after buying refreshments. Jurors heard the two officers who stopped them believed they could smell cannabis.

1 February 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Unproven science used to ‘explain’ custody deaths

originally by: TBIJ
published: 31st January 2012

A controversial unproven syndrome with roots in the US is being used in British coroners’ courts to explain why people die after police restraint.

‘Excited delirium’ or ‘sudden-in-custody-death-syndrome’ is a niche diagnosis not yet recognised by the World Health Organisation or any international authority. A number of leading pathologists have expressed concern about the use of the term in inquests.

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Individuals in the throes of ‘excited delirium’ are described as aggressive, agitated, displaying bizarre behaviour, insensitive to pain and with superhuman strength until they collapse and die

7 January 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

The Stephen Lawrence case and another Injustice

originally by: Film Blog – guardian.co.uk
published: 5th January 2012

The news about the Lawrence verdict and sentencing took me back to the mid-1990s – the case has been hanging for such a shameful length of time – when we journalists stood around gaping at Paul Dacre’s sensational “Murderers” headline in the Daily Mail, and discussing what it all meant. (The paper challenged the five suspects to sue: did that mean sue for criminal libel? For which legal aid was available? Well, they didn’t sue.)

My next thought was to pick up the phone and call the film-maker Ken Fero, who, with Tariq Mehmood, directed one of the most sensational documentaries I think I’ve ever reviewed: the 2001 film Injustice: The Movie. This was about the extraordinary, continuing phenomenon of black and Asian people dying mysteriously in police custody without any prosecution being brought.