£300k compensation after man suffocated in back of police van
WEST Midlands Police paid £300,000 compensation to the family of a Birmingham man who died in custody, it has been revealed.
Judge Andrew Gordon-Saker described the death of 38-year-old Mikey Powell in September 2003 as “tragic and appalling”.
Ten police officers were charged with criminal offences after Mr Powell suffocated in the back of a police van, but all were acquitted in 2006.
And, after that, the Independent Police Complaints Commission decided not to pursue any disciplinary charges against them.
In 2009, an inquest jury found, on the balance of probabilities, that Mr Powell “died in the police van from positional asphyxia”.
The judge added that Mr Powell “had been rendered more vulnerable to death from that cause” when he was earlier struck by a police car.
The father of three had also been sprayed with CS gas, struck with a baton and “restrained on the ground while suffering psychosis”.
Members of his family, including his mother Claris Powell, partner, Marcia Williams, and sister, Sharon Powell, contacted solicitors.
The Chief Constable of West Midlands Police denied liability on behalf of the force, “contending that the officers had used no more force that was reasonable”, said the judge.
But he revealed in a judgment that has now been published that the family’s claims “were eventually settled in November 2015” for £300,000.
He added that the force “accepted the verdict of the jury at the inquest and apologised unreservedly”.
The Chief Constable also agreed to “publish a 96-page document of lessons learned” and to pay the family’s legal costs bills.
The judge’s ruling concerned a continued dispute over the amount of those bills, with the family having lodged costs claims in excess of £1.6 million.
During the inquest in 2009, Clarissa Powell, said she believed her son – who had three young sons – died as a result of racist behaviour by the police.
She had said: “I do think they would not have treated me or Michael in that way if we had been white.”
In 2013, ten years after Mr Powell’s death, police apologised to his devastated family.
West Midlands Police’s Assistant Chief Constable at the time, Garry Forsyth, apologised to Mr Powell’s mother for the “pain and suffering” caused.