‘I didn’t know if I’d survive... he didn’t seem human’
POLICE OFFICER TELLS INQUEST OF HER TERRIFYING ENCOUNTER WITH BLOOD-SOAKED EX-CONVICT AT SCENE OF BRUTAL HOTEL KILLING:
A POLICE officer thought she was going to die as she confronted a “demonic” ex-convict who had brutally murdered a young woman, an inquest heard yesterday.
PC Kelda Griffiths described hearing shouting and growling coming from a room at a hotel in Blackwood as she and colleagues faced Matthew Williams, 34.
Mandy Miles, owner of the Sirhowy Arms Hotel, had dialled 999, screaming and crying and telling them that Williams had murdered 22-year-old Cerys Yemm and was “eating” her face.
PC Griffiths waited outside the hotel for back-up and when they arrived she went inside with PCs Alan Cottrell and Stephen New to confront Williams, who was dripping in blood.
“I remember entering this room thinking ‘Love you mum and dad’ and didn’t know whether I would survive this incident,” she told the fourth day of the inquest at Gwent Coroner’s Court in Newport.
“If I’m honest, he didn’t seem human and when I heard the growling and shouting... it was demonic.
“It is like something you see on the TV and don’t expect to see in life or reality.”
PC Griffiths told the inquest she was at Blackwood police station when she heard a call coming in shortly after 1am on November 6, 2014, saying “there has been a murder, he has been stabbed in the head with a screwdriver and he’s now eating his face”.
She said as she drove to the hotel she was told the suspect was Williams, whom she had known for more than a decade and knew to be a drug user who had mental health problems and was violent, especially to police officers.
The officer said she had been ordered to go into the hotel – which was used as a hostel for homeless people – four times because a life was at risk but instead waited because she knew she would be facing Williams alone.
“The first time I gave reasons why it was not a good idea to go in the first time alone. In the end I refused to go in alone,” she said.
PC Griffiths referred to an incident in 2012 where Dale Cregan lured two police officers to their deaths in Manchester with bogus reports of criminal damage.
“I just believed that maybe he had staged an incident because it was so unreal as that he wanted to get so many police officers there and attack the police,” she said.
“On the other hand the call could have been true.
“By the time I got there we had no further information about his location.
“I didn’t know what I was walking into.
“I just couldn’t get my head around how Mandy Miles had seen him murder someone and he hadn’t left.
“Could it have been staged? I didn’t know.
“All sorts was going through my head.
“It was such an unbelievable, surreal call.
“He had murdered someone and I have no doubts that he didn’t like police and we would have been next, definitely.”
The officer entered the hotel and spoke to Mrs Miles.
“Mandy asked why we had been so long and she said it had been like a blood bath up there and we needed to get up there now,” she said.
“While I was outside the room I heard a growling and snarling type of noise and roaring.”
PC Griffiths said she had her Taser ready to fire and entered the room alongside PC Cottrell where she saw Williams lying on top of Miss Yemm.
“As I stepped into the room I recall seeing Cerys’ face which was horrific.
“I stepped around her and I saw a barb of a Taser had hit the bridge of Matthew Williams’ nose, which PC Cottrell fired,” she said.
PC Griffiths said that she and PC Stephen New, who had arrived at the scene later, went to handcuff Williams and apply restraints around his legs.
“He was fighting and he was struggling,” she told the court.
“At the time of putting the straps on, I could hear PC Cottrell saying ‘Calm down Matthew, I’ll have to Taser you again.’
“I didn’t want to take my eyes off him. I was very concerned after what I had just seen he would bite me.
“He was trying to get up, as much as we shouted to calm down there was no stopping him – he had unbelievable strength.
“He was uncontrollable even with four of us there.
“I was aware he was Tasered another three times. What we saw was horrific.”
Less than an hour after police first arrived on the scene, Williams was dead.
PC Griffiths told the court she did not fire her Taser and returned the weapon and two cartridges afterwards to police investigators.
Williams suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was released from HMP Parc in Bridgend two weeks earlier with no support or medication and was placed at the hotel by Caerphilly Borough Council.
He had 78 previous convictions for offences including assault, burglary and drug-related offences and had spent much of his adult life in and out of prison.
He had met Miss Yemm on a night out after his release and that the pair spent time together, forming a “flirty” relationship.
The inquest has previously heard that Mrs Miles has since learned that the “science” has proven that Williams was not performing an act of cannibalism, but that was what it looked like to her.
Stephen New, who recently retired as a police constable from Gwent Police, described the scene in the hotel room as one of “utter carnage”.
He said he saw PCs Cottrell and Griffiths putting on the fast straps around Williams’ legs as he tried to resist.
“I was absolutely horrified to what he had done to the person there,” Mr New said.
“I know it’s not him that’s done it, it’s the consequences quite clearly of taking drugs and there was also mental health problems.
“He was expressing symptoms of meow meow.”
Mr New said Williams was then stunned three times with the Taser to allow the leg straps to be tightened before he carried out a medical assessment of him.
“He was breathing and his chest was rising. It was difficult to do a survey of him and find if he was injured because he was absolutely covered in blood,” he told the inquest. He said paramedics were then summoned to the hotel room, where Williams was lifted into a chair and carried to an ambulance.
Mr New said he followed and called for help when he saw Williams, who was sitting in the back of the ambulance, had turned “white” and was not breathing. He said he performed CPR on him. “I was trying to save him,” he said. “I spent months afterwards regretting that I was unable to save two young people who had their lives ended because of drugs.
“In my opinion, the fact we were able to go in there first with the Tasers instead of the firearms officers, we gave him a chance.
“I dread to think if the firearms officers had gone in there first.”
The inquest was adjourned until Tuesday.