Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
He was kicking his head, stamping it
Witness on cop accused of Dalian killing
A POLICE officer repeatedly stamped on Dalian Atkinson’s head as he lay on the ground after being shot with a Taser, a witness claimed in court yesterday.
Jean Jeffrey-shaw said PC Benjamin Monk stamped on the former Aston Villa striker so hard she had to turn away as she believed he was dead.
The 42-year-old officer is accused of murder and manslaughter following the incident outside Mr Atkinson’s father’s house in August 2016.
Police had been called to the street after Mr Atkinson turned up at the property and demanded to be let in, claiming to be the “messiah”.
Prosecutors said Monk deployed his Taser weapon for 33 seconds – more than six times longer than the default five-second phase. He is then alleged to have left imprints from his boot on 48-yearold Mr Atkinson’s forehead while he was on the ground. Mrs Jeffrey-shaw told Birmingham crown court she saw Monk fire his Taser at the ex-premier League star.
She told jurors the officer then “stamped” on him while telling him to keep his head down.
“I said to my husband, ‘Why is he telling him to keep his head down? My God he is dead’,” she said.
“He went boom, boom, boom on his head. He was kicking his head, he was stamping on it.
“I thought he was dead. I thought he was talking to a dead man.
“It was too much for me. I had to look away.” She said Monk’s colleague PC Ellie Bettley-smith, who was in a relationship with him, hit Mr Atkinson with a baton at the same time.
The court heard Mr Atkinson had told his elderly father “I have come to kill you” shortly before being shot.
In his statement Ernest Atkinson, who has since died, told police his son was “not in his right mind” at the time of the incident in Telford, Shrops.
Ernest, then 85, told officers his son said to him: “I’m alive, I am the messiah, and I have come to kill you.”
Monk denies murder and manslaughter and Bettley-smith, 31, denies ABH. The trial continues.