from Birmingham Mail
3rd December 2009

A young police officer who witnessed the death of Michael Powell said he “was still alive and conscious” on arrival at a police station.

Mr Powell died shortly after he was detained outside his home in Lozells and taken to nearby Thornhill Road police station. An inquest jury at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall heard from PC Luke Gill, was 20 years-old when Mr Powell died and had been patrolling the streets for less than one year.

He told the court his first impressions of the area was that there were “a lot of gun crime” incidents. PC Gill said when he arrived in Wilton Road on September 7, 2003, he saw the 38-year-old factory worker being restrained by three police officers.

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from Birmingham Mail
2nd December 2009

A police inspector on duty when Michael Powell died in custody defended his decision to send the father-of-three to a police station instead of a hospital.

Mr Anthony Guest, who has since retired, told the inquest jury at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall that he believed Mr Powell’s behaviour had been “violent” in the moments before he was put into a police van. Officers had been called to the home of Mr Powell’s mother in Wilton Road, Lozells, after reports the 38-year-old had smashed windows on the property and a car in the driveway.

Mr Powell was also said to have run towards a police patrol car with an unknown weapon before smashing a rear window.

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