Sheku Bayoh: Expert witness criticises police tactics

An expert witness has criticised the tactics used by police before the confrontation which ended in Sheku Bayoh's death in Kirkcaldy.

Joanne Caffrey said unarmed officers should not have been sent "sporadically" to the scene.

Instead, she said the police should have agreed a tactical plan for a "managed and controlled intervention".

Ms Caffrey, an expert in safer custody, made the comments in a report to the public inquiry into Mr Bayoh's death.

Giving evidence at the hearing in Edinburgh, she also said the approach taken by the first officers at the scene had fallen within the range of tactical options open to them.

Members of the public called 999 after spotting Mr Bayoh walking through Kirkcaldy on a Sunday morning in May 2015. He was said to have been carrying a knife, behaving erratically and chasing cars.

The first officers to find him could not see a knife but decided to approach him straight away because they believed he posed a danger to the public.

Officers Craig Walker and Alan Paton have told the inquiry that Mr Bayoh refused to comply with their commands and walked towards them.

They used CS and Pava irritant sprays to incapacitate Mr Bayoh but they had no effect and blew back into the officers' faces.

Two other officers, PC Nicole Short and PC Ashley Tomlinson, then arrived at the scene.

Mr Bayoh is alleged to have struck PC Short on the back of the head. Two of the officers have claimed that he stamped on her as she lay on the ground.

The stamping allegation has been disputed by a civilian eye witness and is so far unsupported by medical or forensic evidence.

PC Tomlinson has said he believed Mr Bayoh had killed PC Short and decided to use potentially lethal force, striking him on the head with his baton.

PC Walker then shoulder charged Mr Bayoh.

The police said Mr Bayoh continued to struggle on the ground, with six officers involved in restraining him. He stopped breathing and later died in hospital. A knife was found near the scene after the incident.

Ms Caffrey's 352 page report was published on the inquiry's website after she completed her evidence at this week's public hearings.

In its executive summary, Ms Caffrey said: "Unarmed officers should have been deployed to a RV (rendezvous) point to muster and observe until the tactical plan was agreed and a managed and controlled intervention agreed as the tactical plan.

"Unarmed officers should not attend sporadically as they did. Medical attendance from the outlet should have been considered. Staff should have deployed as a team."

Ms Caffrey said any use of force should be the minimum required to gain control quickly and place the detainee in a safe position.

No officer should lay over the torso of a restrained person as it could interfere with breathing, she added.

In her evidence at the public hearings, Ms Caffrey has also said that sending a dog unit was the best response to an incident involving a moving suspect thought to be armed with a knife.

She said the first officers at the scene could have monitored Mr Bayoh from a distance and waited for a dog unit to arrive.

The inquiry has heard that the nearest dog unit was in Edinburgh and would have taken 20 minutes to get there.

It was dispatched a minute after the first officers had found Mr Bayoh on Kirkcaldy's Hayfield Road.

Questioned by Roddy Dunlop KC, who is representing the Scottish Police Federation and two of the officers involved in the incident, Miss Caffrey agreed it would have been difficult to have prevented Mr Bayoh from moving away from the scene.

She also agreed the decision by the officers to approach Mr Bayoh immediately had fallen within the range of tactical options which they could have used.

Mr Dunlop asked her: "If you've got gap closing, if you've got failure to respond to lawful commands, and if you are reasonably of the understanding that he's in possession of a knife, deployment of CS and Pava is a reasonable option open to a reasonable officer?"

Ms Caffrey replied: "It's one of the tactical options, yes."

The inquiry in Edinburgh is looking into the circumstances of Mr Bayoh's death after he was restrained by police in May 2015, and whether his race was a factor.