A young dad died two days after telling police he could see a man with a gun outside his flat.
Thomas Owens, 26, was spotted behaving erratically outside the Baa Bar on Fleet Street, Liverpool city centre, just after midnight on Saturday, September 11 2021, and refused to leave when asked by two police officers. The officers suspected he was under the influence of drugs and searched him, however, no drugs were found.
The dad-of-one was handcuffed by the officers and moved to a nearby police van, where he reportedly became unwell. He was then de-arrested by the officers, who took him to Royal Liverpool Hospital for an assessment.
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At around 2.30am, Mr Owens' condition worsened, and he suffered two cardiac arrests after arriving at the hospital. As medics carried out CPR, they discovered a blood-stained white paper sachet filled with cocaine lodged inside his throat.
He was transferred to the ICU, where he suffered another cardiac arrest the following day, September 12, and died. A post-mortem found the cause of death was cocaine toxicity, complicated by an airway obstruction, which led to cardiac arrest.
At his inquest today, April 17, a jury heard that Mr Owens, who lived in Liverpool, struggled with cocaine addiction and his drug use had worsened since losing his labouring job due to lockdown.
He had been in contact with mental health specialists at both Royal Liverpool Hospital and Merseyside Police, and was also in contact with the Early Intervention in Psychosis Service after experiencing repeated paranoid hallucinations while under the influence of drugs.
The court heard that, between September 2020 and March 2021, he placed 98 calls to emergency services as he "could see things moving inside his walls" and believed he was being watched. In May 2021, while attending A&E, he told a mental health nurse he was "going round the bend "on cocaine and alcohol, and had been experiencing "mad things".
After failing to attend several appointments with the psychosis team, his psychiatrist Dr John Stevens visited his flat on September 9, three days before he died.
He said that Tom has previously been "reluctant" to allow access to his home and, when he visited, Tom was struggling to talk and appeared paranoid.
On September 10, Mr Owens placed a 999 call to police reporting a man with a gun in a car park near his flat. Police attended, but found the area deserted. They went to Mr Owens' property to talk to him, however, he refused to let them in, and would only speak to them briefly through the door.
The inquest continues.
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