How police dealt with hostage drama at coffee shop
MAN HELD FORK TO POORLY GIRL’S HEAD AND PULLED OUT HER FEEDING TUBE DURING SIX-HOUR STAND-OFF
WHEN police were faced with a mentally ill man clutching a child and pointing makeshift weapons at her head in a coffee shop, the terrifying situation spanned six hours but thankfully resulted in the safe rescue of the child.
Inspector Paul Hennessy, who was on the scene, has revealed for the first time what he and his fellow officers faced just after lunchtime on Monday, February 3, inside the Costa coffee shop in Friar Lane, in the heart of Nottingham city centre.
It was a run-of-the-mill day, he recalled, until the city centre police team requested that negotiators attend an incident at the coffee shop, where a man had taken a poorly child hostage
Inspector Hennessy said: “He’d armed himself with a number of makeshift weapons which he held to the child’s head, including a fork, a sharpened pencil, which sounds quite innocuous, but the reality was it was a really sharp pencil with thick lead which he was holding next to the child’s forehead.
“He had removed the child’s intravenous feeding tube from the stomach. He’d wrapped that round his finger and, again it was a clear sign to us that, ‘don’t come near me because I have removed the tube, I’m holding weapons to her head’.”
A police negotiator was brought in. Officers and medics from East Midlands Ambulance Service were also with the man and the child for six hours.
The streets of Nottingham were busy, and people began to congregate, take pictures and film what was happening as the police presence grew in response to the volatile and aggressive man inside – an incident which was initially in full view through the shop’s large windows.
Conscious of this, community protection officers arranged for dustbin lorries to be parked to block the view while firefighters brought in screens to cover the windows.
“Some of the customers left of their own accord but the officers on the scene ushered most of them out,” said Inspector Hennessy.
“You can imagine he (the man) was pacing about shouting and screaming, and most people took the decision to leave.
“Some, including the staff, were ushered to the basement downstairs, because that was the safest place for them to go.
“So for the entirety of the six hours a lot of staff and some customers remained in the basement of the location.”
It was quite clear that the initial negotiations were failing. The man had a deep mistrust of anybody in authority including the police, added Inspector Hennessy.
“There was no doubt when we were looking at him that we thought this child could be killed in front of our eyes.
“So because of this scenario that we were faced with – sharp weapons to the head, small child, lots of illnesses – we assessed how we were going to resolve this incident.
“Clearly trying to use force against him was not an option at that time and it was clear to me, as the commander on the ground, that our only option was negotiation.”
More negotiators were drafted in. Police were told by hospital medics that the child could last up to 12 hours before infection would cause her serious issues due to the sudden removal of the feeding tube.
Inspector Hennessy – whose role involves managing the response to all emergency and critical incidents reported to Nottinghamshire Police – and his colleagues assessed how they were going to resolve the incident.
The man was pacing around the interior of the coffee shop, sitting down on chairs, sitting down on tables, engaging with the negotiators infrequently and, frequently shouting abuse at them.
At one of his briefings, Inspector Hennessy said that if an opportunity presented itself, they could use force to safely retrieve the child and restrain the man.
After six hours of negotiation, the man put down a fork that he had held against the child’s head and opened his rucksack.
He produced a sharpened pencil and held it against the child’s head.
“The child was crying throughout, was clearly really, really distressed, said Inspector Hennessy.
Police were now within a metre of the offender.
“Six hours he was pacing around and then he took an opportunity to sit down on a table.
“He had one foot on a chair. He had the pencil against the child’s forehead, making various threats, and then he dropped the pencil that he was using as a weapon against the child.”
To retrieve the pencil, he took his eye off the police and very slightly loosened his grip on the child, and police seized their moment to bring the situation to an end.
Inspector Hennessy said: “We were all in sync, we all saw this was the opportunity and we had to take it.
“So I gave the instruction to ‘go’ and we approached him and as we did so, he saw us coming, he again tightly gripped the child to his chest – who was screaming out in pain – but at that point we all managed to take hold of various parts of his body; his legs, his arms, his upper arms.
“One officer took hold of his hair – he had long greasy, shoulder-length hair, and we essentially used force in order to restrain him, while an officer removed the child from his grasp.
“It took what felt like an eternity to do it and, as the commander and somebody who took the decision, I took hold of him and he gripped the child really, really strongly.
“As you can imagine, he was really, really aggressive.”
The child was sent over to waiting paramedics.
Remarkably, she was essentially unharmed, and spent a night in hospital under observation.
Inspector Hennessy said: “It was a real fantastic team effort between all the emergency services and our colleagues from community protection.”
The team has been given a police award for what they did that day.
At Nottingham Crown Court in October, Mohammed Othman, 36, of no fixed address, was given an indefinite hospital order after the incident at Costa Coffee, having been charged with cruelty to a person under 16 years.