It is “not possible” that Sheku Bayoh stamped on a female police officer as she lay prone on the ground, as two other officers have claimed, according to a witness who watched the 31-year-old’s arrest from his living room window.
Bayoh died in handcuffs and sustained multiple injuries after officers responded to calls from the public about a man brandishing a knife and behaving erratically early on a Sunday morning in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in May 2015.
Last week, PC Ashley Tomlinson told the inquiry into Bayoh’s death in custody that Bayoh had punched PC Nicole Short, after which she fell on the ground, before “stomping on her back”, while PC Craig Walker demonstrated a “full-force stamp” with his arms raised.
Short, who has since retired from the force, told the inquiry last week that she had no memory of this herself and that it was only later, when the officers involved in Bayoh’s arrest congregated in the staff canteen, that colleagues told her they believed she had been knocked unconscious and had seen Bayoh “stamping and kicking” her.
But Kevin Nelson, who lived nearby and watched the incident unfolding from his living room window and then his garden gate, told the inquiry on Tuesday that he did not see Bayoh trying to strike Short again, and that he appeared to be trying to get away.
Angela Grahame QC, the senior counsel to the inquiry, showed Nelson a photograph of Walker imitating how he said the stamp took place. “Is it possible when [Bayoh’s] arms were raised and you saw him with his arms raised that he was stamping on the female officer?” Grahame asked him.
“I don’t think it’s possible, no,” replied Nelson. “She was down and had moved away from him, as soon as she was going down that’s when he changed course.”
The independent inquiry, under Lord Bracadale and taking place in Edinburgh, is the result of years of campaigning by Bayoh’s family, who believe his death was caused by positional asphyxia because of the tactics used by police. They allege officers overreacted and were motivated by racial bias.
Nelson described how Bayoh approached the officers: “It was just wild swinging. Both arms were going. It didn’t look like – I’m not a boxing expert, but it didn’t look in any controlled way.”
He said he saw Short being hit but that Bayoh then stopped swinging and looked like he was trying to get away.
“Then the policeman just grabbed him. Almost tackled him,” he said.
Nelson, who said he then moved outside to watch the arrest from his gate, said he saw “what looked like a pile of bodies on the ground … like a collapsed scrum at the rugby”. He said he presumed Bayoh “was under them all”, stating it “looked like three or four” officers on top of him. He said he believed Bayoh must have been face-down because of the angle of his legs.
The inquiry, at Capital House in Edinburgh, continues.
