Fire inquest.
longed period of choking.
Nicholas suffered from periodic attacks of violent insanity, the Cause which remained a mystery When TONS wasn't ill, though, he was described by members oi pleasant. telligent person.
Violent On the day of his death he suddenly became violent while watching Iv with his niece. She, not knowing his attacks, investigation into the THE INQUEST into the death of Nicholas Ofusu, a Ghanaian who died in police custody in May this year, ended last week. The verdict was 'misadventure'. The Coroner was Dr Arthur Gordon Davies, coroner to the royal household and of the Deptford death was likely to have taken some time — a probecame very frightened Ultimately she ended up on the balcony of their seventh flat, screaming and calling for They arrived the police arrested and handcuffed Nicholas Ofusu and took him away laid flat on his stomach on the floor of a transit van. It was in the yall that he began to vomit.
Police accounts claim that his vomiting was Colin Roach demo - the inquest jury called for a police treatment of death slight. But by the time they reached the police station W di close to death. Attempts to revive him failed.
Evidence The evidence of most of the witnesses was that the police had not acted with excessive violence Gary Young, • fe claimed that the police had acted with a lot of unnecessary violence had held Nicholas tightly by the neck and flung him into the flat block lift.
Gary was viciously attacked by the coroner who claimed that the unsigned statement he given was 'suspect, untrue and malicious' The jury were instructed to ignore his The Nicholas Ofusu Inquest demonstrated, as the Colin Roach Inquest before it, inal tne coroner s systen works to prevent the truth Deme CONC death in police custody.
The coroner has complete power to decide what evidence presented before the court, and is able to discredit evidence which malpractice. if the Police Bill becomes law we may be sure that the numbers of deaths in police custody will rise dramatically.
Inquiry The need for the black community and the labour movement to challenge the verdicts of the coroners' courts and to demand full and independent public inquiries will become ever
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Medical evidence revealed that Nicholas had died by 'drowning in his own vomit', and that his