‘Gentle’ man who died in police cell
÷Last moments of church caretaker captured on CCTV ÷Three police staff on trial for killing
BUNDLED into a cell by a crowd of police officers, a church caretaker is restrained with a belt over his nose and mouth and left face down on a thin mattress.
These CCTV images show the final moments of the life of Thomas Orchard. Minutes after they were taken, paranoid schizophrenic Mr Orchard, 32, suffered a cardiac arrest after being starved of oxygen.
He died a week later in hospital from brain damage and asphyxia, a jury has been told. One police officer and two civilian custody officials are now on trial accused of unlawfully killing the ‘placid and quiet’ man by strapping the controversial restraint across his face.
When played in court for the first time last month, the video reduced onlookers in the public gallery to tears.
A legal battle to secure the release of the footage was fought by a number of newspaper groups including Associated Newspapers – publishers of the Daily Mail.
Mr Orchard had suffered a relapse in his mental health and was arrested for a public order offence in Exeter city centre in October 2012. At the city’s main police station, the ‘emergency response belt’ was put across his mouth and nose for five minutes, Bristol Crown Court has heard.
He was also bound with handcuffs and
‘Lying motionless on the floor’
leg restraints. Custody Sergeant Jan Kingshott, 44, and civilian detention officers Simon Tansley, 38, and Michael Marsden, 55, each deny two charges of unlawful act manslaughter and manslaughter by gross negligence. They say they used the belt proportionately and as they had been trained to because Mr Orchard was threatening to bite them.
But Mr Orchard’s mother Alison has previously told the court she had never seen her son bite, and had not seen him have a ‘tantrum’ for a decade.
The CCTV shows Mr Orchard being carried by staff into a cell while wearing the belt. They then hold him face down on the floor, before they finally remove the belt and leave his cell. He barely moves as the belt is taken off and then stays motionless on the floor. But it was a further 12 minutes before staff found he was not breathing, the court heard.
Other CCTV images released as the defendants’ defence cases concluded yesterday showed Mr Orchard being arrested in the street, marched from the van into the station in restraints, and carried around the station.
Judge Mr Justice King, ruling the images could be released, warned the jury: ‘Don’t take any notice of what anyone else may think about this case.’
Opening the case last month, prosecutor Mark Heywood QC told jurors Mr Orchard died because the officers did not check if he could breathe as they restrained him. He said: ‘The combination of force and physical restraints used on him on the day of his arrest, coupled, says the prosecution, with a complete failure to enquire and so to realise his true condition and also to observe him closely, led together to him being starved of oxygen to the point of cardio-respiratory arrest.
‘He died because force was used to restrain him, mostly in a prone, face- down, position, and in addition a large webbing belt was put across his face in the course of those events. Together – you may think obviously – these things interfered with his ability to breathe. The situation continued for over five minutes ... He was left in a locked cell, under more remote observation, for a further 12 minutes until his true condition was discovered. By then, it was too late.’ The lawyer told
jurors the three defendants were ‘ directly responsible’ for Mr Orchard’s detention in custody, for ‘implementing and directing’ the force that was used, and for applying the belt.
The court heard Mr Orchard had suffered with mental health issues since his teens. He was admitted to hospital five times between 2004 and 2009, and was living in supported housing in Exeter.
On the day of his arrest on October 3, 2012, his health had deteriorated and after going to church for communion he attacked a man in Exeter city centre. After 999 calls were made, seven officers, none of them on trial, arrested him for allegedly using threatening words or behaviour, the
‘He cried out, let me go’
jury heard. Witnesses said he was attempting to bite the officers.
Describing Mr Orchard’s arrest to jurors earlier in the trial, Mr Heywood said: ‘He was picked up and carried but one of them stood at his head and held it in both his hands in what is the classic preferred movement of someone of this kind. It makes a lot of sense. It is simple and usually used, and above all trained as a technique. The question arises why it was not used later.’
Mr Orchard arrived at Heavitree Road Police Station at around 11.18am, where ‘experienced’ Kingshott was in charge.
Mr Heywood said Mr Orchard remained in restraints for a total of 22 minutes and for a ‘significant part of the time’ had the belt over his face. The court also heard Mr Orchard called out ‘let me go’ or ‘let go’ seven times during his restraint in the cell. Marsden, who held the belt on Mr Orchard’s face for three minutes, said this was typical behaviour of violent detainees. ‘To me it was just noise,’ he told the jury. ‘I just remember someone shouting.’
Marsden said he did not have concerns when the belt was applied to Mr Orchard’s face, adding: ‘We had been given a piece of equipment and trained to use that piece of equipment in a certain set of circumstances. Those circumstances arose on that day. We did what we had been trained to do with someone who had been making constant threats from start to finish to bite.’
He said Mr Orchard ‘appeared fine’ after he removed the ERB and was left in the cell. Minutes later, Marsden returned to the cell and looked through to see Mr Orchard.
‘I wasn’t concerned when I left the cell, I wasn’t concerned when I went back,’ he told the jury. ‘I saw him breathing, I saw his shoulders moving. He seemed to be settling down and making himself comfortable.’
Marsden raised the alarm after returning to the cell for a second time, the court heard.
The trial continues.