UK: Inquest bid over 'garden mud' death

The British High Court was asked today to order a fresh inquest on a man who died after being restrained “head down in garden mud” by a number of police officers.

Family members want a new investigation to consider whether Malcolm Cash was “unlawfully killed”.

The Chief Constable of Northamptonshire is opposing the application.

Officers were called to the home of the 29-year-old in Wellingborough, Northants, in July 2002.

He had had a row with his girlfriend, overdosed and cut his wrist with a razor blade.

At the High Court in London today, lawyers for Helen Cash, the dead man’s sister through adoption, said there was evidence that he had been restrained by the police using “unreasonable force” and this had led to his death.

They asked Mr Justice Keith to quash the original inquest jury’s finding in November 2005 that the death had been “accidental”.

They argued that Northampton coroner Anne Pember had wrongly prevented the jury from considering a verdict of unlawful killing.

She had also wrongly failed to give reasons for her decision.

Stephen Simblet, appearing for the Cash family, said police officers had confronted Mr Cash in his garden.

He had taken an overdose of sleeping tablets, was wobbly on his feet and “a threat to no one”.

The razor blade which had drawn blood on his arm was in his back pocket.

One witness Lisa Sharpe, said he was so unsteady on his feet that “you could have blown on him and he would have fallen over”.

But there was evidence that police officers had “fiercely swung him round and put him on the floor head down”, said Mr Simblet.

Witnesses said he was handcuffed and forcibly held with his face down in the garden mud for a period of a few minutes. Photos showed mud on his head and nose.

“There was evidence that officers had knelt on the deceased.”

Police officers involved in the arrest said that they had cleared the garden mud away from Mr Cash’s mouth to keep his airways clear, but that was disputed by other witnesses.

The police also maintained that they were using an approved restraint technique, but there was evidence that a hand had been put on Mr Cash’s shoulder, which was not part of any technique officers had been trained to use, said Mr Simblet.

Asking Mr Justice Keith to order a fresh inquest, Mr Simblet argued there was enough evidence available to make it necessary in law for “a reasonably directed jury” to consider whether Mr Cash had been unlawfully killed.

Mr Simblet referred to Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to life and requires that “no more force than is absolutely necessary” is used by agents of the state, including the police.

By refusing to leave a possible unlawful killing to the jury, the coroner had wrongly interfered with its Article 2 duty to explain to Mr Cash’s family how he had come by his death.

John Beggs, appearing for the Chief Constable of Northamptonshire, is defending the coroner’s decision.

Mr Beggs contends Mrs Pember “conducted a thorough and exacting analysis” and been entitled to conclude there was insufficient evidence to leave the unlawful killing verdict to the jury.

The jury itself had returned “a reasoned and rational verdict” after the end of the five-day inquest and after deliberating for three hours.

It was “regrettable” that the coroner had failed to record the proceedings or to give reasons for her decision, but that did not justify a fresh inquest more than five years after Mr Cash’s “tragic and untimely death”.