from Black Mental Health UK
16th December 2009

The jury at the inquest into the tragic death while in police custody of service user Michael Lloyd Powell (known as Mikey) today returned a damning verdict  and found that the way that he was restrained resulted in his death from positional asphyxia.

We have worked for six years to reach this point – the jury have found that the position the police put Mikey in killed him .   Hopefully this will give some encouragement to other families who have lost someone in custody,’ Mikey’s sister Sieta Lambrias said.

This landmark case has gripped the attention of with large sections of the community who are increasingly concerned about how police officers treat vulnerable black service users when they are taken into custody.

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from Birmingham Mail
11th December 2009

A dramatic emergency phone call of police requesting an ambulance for a 38-year-old Birmingham man who died after being arrested has been played to inquest jurors.

A female officer was heard to describe father-of-three Michael Powell in the recording as “unconscious” having earlier been “uncooperative” and “going mad”. He had been arrested by police in a violent struggle in which he was sprayed with CS gas outside his mother, Clarissa Powell’s home in Lozells, in September 2003.

Mr Powell was then taken to Thornhill Road Police Station, in Handsworth, where the officer calls for paramedics. Mr Powell, who police claimed to have believed could have been armed with a gun, died after being arrested.

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from Socialist Worker Online
9th December 2009

Police officers have been giving evidence to the inquest into the death of Mikey Powell who died in police custody in 2003.

Sergeant Russell Tringham, who was a police constable stationed at Walsall Road Police Station at the time, told the inquest that he had been attending to another call when he received an emergency radio message to go to Wilton Road.

When he arrived, he saw Mikey on his back, handcuffed with his arms above him, resisting arrest by three police officers. Sergeant Tringham did not assist with the restraint and went looking for missing police equipment for a couple of minutes.

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