UK: Police officers acquitted
01 September 1999
The acquittal in July 1999 of three Metropolitan police officers charged with the manslaughter of Irishman Richard O'Brien renewed calls for independent investigations into police custody deaths. It is a testimony to the strength and tenacity of the O'Brien family that these officers ever stood trial and were finally made to account for their actions in front of a judge and jury.
On 3 April 1994 Alison and Richard O'Brien with their teenage boys, James and Richard Charles went to a christening party at a pub in south London and then on to another event at a parish hall. A disturbance broke out and the police were called. Outside the hall, Richard and Richard Charles waited while Alison tried to find James. She returned to find Richard under arrest and knowing there was nothing she could do resolved to leave with her boys. However, 14 year old Richard Charles intervened in his father's detention and when Alison was unable to dissuade the police from taking him to the station also, she insisted that she too should be arrested so that she could accompany her son. Meanwhile, Richard was being restrained by police, face down on the ground. Alison and Richard Charles maintain that they heard him call out, "I can't breathe, let me up, you win" and that the officer who was restraining him replied, "We always win". The officers denied that exchange of words, claiming that Richard was drunk and struggling violently. They also denied being racially abusive.
His body was apparently lifeless by the time police officers placed him inside the van with Alison and Richard Charles. The family said that when Richard Charles demanded that the police check his father, an officer slapped him about the face and forced him back into his seat, and after Alison protested he replied, "we'll teach him a lesson while he's young." The officer, who has never faced any charges, denies these allegations. At Walworth Police Station, Alison and Richard Charles were informed that Richard had been transferred to King's College Hospital. On reaching the hospital they were told that Richard had been dead on arrival.
Alison then had to begin the process of trying to find out precisely what had happened after her husband's arrest. No information about where she could go for advice and support was forthcoming from the authorities. By chance she was referred by a friend to INQUEST. She was to begin an epic battle in which she would pit her resources against the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service. She would play her part in bringing about significant changes to the state's handling of deaths in police custody.
Ten months after Richard's death it was announced that no police officer would be charged with any criminal offence. The inquest took place in late 1995. After two weeks the jury took just 40 minutes to return a unanimous verdict, beyond reasonable doubt, of unlawful killing. They gave the cause of death as "postural asphyxia in the course of a struggle against restraint". In essence it had been brought about by three inter-linking factors: the position in which he was held - face down on the ground; the restraint by the police officers which prevented him from adjusting his position and his own struggle to breathe against that restraint.
The Coroner referred the case back to the DPP for further consideration and castigated the training offered by the Metropolitan Police in restraint techniques. He took particular care to thank Alison and INQUEST for the assistance they had provided to his inquiry.
It took Barbara Mills 11 months to reconsider and she did not change her mind. INQUEST advised Alison that although she could challenge the decision - by judicial review - the courts had never before overturned a decision by the DPP not to prosecute. Alison allied herself with others: the widow of Shiji Lapite who had obtained an unlawful killing verdict following the death of her husband in the course of restraint by police and