By Chris Williamson-
Lambeth Council have called for a change in the culture of policing after a man died in custody .Cllr Mahamed Hashi, Lambeth’s Cabinet Member for Safer Communities has condemned the culture of policing following the death, and expressed his view that better training is required to improve the standard and discretion of police in dealing with various communities adequately.
Hashi told The Eye Of Media.Com that a level of ”police accountability continues to be lacking even with the IOPC as regulator, adding that there is a general lack of understanding of the failings of the police when it comes to engaging with particular communities, and the basic expectations of responsible and honourable police officers in their line of work”.
Ian Taylor, 54, from Brixton died while under arrest by police after being detained in Coldharbour Lane in his local area on 29 June 2019. He had been engaged in an earlier fight with members of the public and arrested and handcuffed by officers on suspicion of grievous bodily harm. Mr Taylor had been involved in two separate incidents of serious violence that day.
A coroner’s jury found on 20 May, 2022 that his death was caused by acute asthma and situational stress, alongside two underlying health conditions, with dehydration as a further contributing factor. Footage from body-worn police cameras was played at the inquest.
The coroner re-referred the Met to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) in regards to comments made by one of the attending officers.
However, the IOPC found no indication ‘that any person serving with the police may have committed a criminal offence or behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings’.
The issue of a need for disciplinary actions in matters like this is believed to be subjective, depending on factors taken into account.
A coroner’s jury found on 20 May this year that his death was caused by acute asthma and situational stress, alongside two underlying health conditions, with dehydration as a further contributing factor.
They also found that he died in part because the police’s assessment of the risks to him were not adequate.
The coroner said he would refer one of the officers involved to the Independent Office for Police Conduct for further investigation.
Mr Taylor, had previously been hospitalised with severe asthma, pleaded for help as he became very short of breath while under arrest.
An ambulance was called but was severely delayed. Despite repeatedly telling the all-white police officers that he could not breathe and was going to die, Mr Taylor was left lying on the street on one of the hottest days of the year without an inhaler, water or medical assistance.
The court heard expert evidence that Mr Taylor’s respiratory rate – measured using body-worn video footage – was between 30 and 40 breaths per minute.
Any respiratory rate of over 30 breaths per minute is considered to be a medical emergency. Although the police are trained to measure the respiratory rate and vital signs of people suffering from asthma in order to assess the severity of their condition, the officers responsible for monitoring Mr Taylor did not do this.
One officer was captured on body worn video footage fetching water for herself from one of multiple plastic water bottles in a police car.
When asked at the inquest why she did not offer any of the bottles to Mr Taylor, she stated that this water “belonged to other officers”.
The meeting will be chaired jointly by Pastor Lorraine Jones of Dwaynamics, who is chair of the Independent Advisory Group for Lambeth police, and Lee Jasper, chair of the Lambeth Youth Safety Forum and Alliance for Police Accountability.
Mr Taylor’s family was represented at the inquest by Duncan Lewis solicitor Courtney Smith.
In a statement after the verdict, she said: “The inquest heard that although the police were told the ambulance service had suspended responses to all but the most urgent calls, the officers with Mr Taylor did not consider driving him to a hospital, which was only two streets away.
“The Met police’s policy is that officers can drive detainees to hospital in exceptional circumstances.
“Their training is clear in that those circumstances include instances where ambulances are severely delayed, and when it is believed that a person will die or that their health will seriously deteriorate if not taken to hospital immediately.
“However, the officers appeared not to believe that Mr Taylor was seriously unwell, telling him to ‘stop acting up’ and to ‘grow up’.
“One described Mr Taylor’s pleas for help as ‘all a load of nonsense’.
“In addition, the officers present appeared unaware of the Met’s policy and were repeatedly heard saying on body-worn video footage that they could do nothing but wait for an ambulance.”
“I need my inhaler … I can’t breathe … I’m dying.”
Dismaying
The Coroner at the time said that it was “dismaying” the Met Police had done nothing for the last three years to address the conduct of the officer who had dismissed Mr Taylor’s pleas for help as “nonsense”.
Cllr Mahamed Hashi, Lambeth’s Cabinet Member for Safer Communities, said: “Ian Taylor’s death has traumatised his family and shocked the local community. That pain was laid bare during a community meeting at Lambeth Town Hall in July when his relatives spoke with searing honesty and clarity about their tragic loss.
“They also spoke of their extreme concern about how information had been shared with them, and how this had made a terrible situation even worse for them. This shock and anger was reflected across the room as others in our community spoke about their own experiences, and reflected on what had happened.
“This latest announcement is deeply disappointing, and makes very clear that much more must be done to change the culture of policing. At Lambeth Council we are already working hard to improve public accountability when it comes to policing the borough, whether that be around stop and search or how the police engage with local communities following incidents in their area.
“But it must be backed up by the Met responding to being put in special measures by developing new and better ways of engaging with communities, becoming more transparent and more reflective of the diverse city it seeks to serve.”