Jury are discharged in former soldier inquest
THE jury at an inquest into the death of an ex-soldier who was tasered by police has been discharged after failing to agree about the way he died.
Spencer Beynon, 43, a former platoon sergeant from Llanelli, died on June 14, 2016 after officers were called by members of the public over concerns about his behaviour.
The inquest has been taking place at Parc y Scarlets rugby stadium in Llanelli over the last three weeks.
Oliver West, one of the two officers who responded to the reports, told the hearing he had “no other option” but to fire his Taser at Mr Beynon, claiming the military veteran had stood and tried to charge at him.
On Thursday, acting senior coroner Paul Bennett, instructed the jury to record that Mr Beynon’s death was as a result of a cut throat, and not the Taser.
Mr Bennett said: “You will recall that a number of questions were put to the medical experts about whether the Taser caused death.
“There was no evidence to support this from the medical experts.”
Instead, the coroner told the jury to record Mr Beynon’s cause of death as a cut throat. He added that the only two verdicts open to the jury were suicide or misadventure.
However, on Monday a hung jury was announced and the jurors discharged after not being able to come to a majority decision on what to rule the death as.
Mr Beynon’s family condemned Mr Bennett’s decision to not allow the jury to rule on the cause of death.
In a statement, their lawyer, Sophie Khan, said: “The family are not just appalled by the coroner’s ruling but disappointed that after fighting for five years and four months for an Article 2 jury inquest, that our right to have an inquest jury decide on the key issues has now been taken away.
“We struggle to understand the point of a jury inquest, if the coroner can act in this way, and restrict the inquest jury’s right to make conclusions on the key issues, especially on the use of the Taser.”
Mr Beynon’s family said in a statement: “The family remain of the view that the coroner directed the inquest jury in the wrong way.
“If the coroner had directed the jury to make their own decision instead of insisting it was either suicide or accidental death this inquest would not have collapsed.
“It is obvious the jury did not agree with the coroner’s direction given last Thursday. To think that as a family we will now have to go through this all again is heartbreaking, but we will do so to get justice for Spencer.
“The family believe the jury would have come to a conclusion, if they had been correctly directed.”
Mr Beynon, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, had suffered with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since returning from his tours of duty, and had been medically discharged.
When officers entered Maes y Bwlch, a housing estate in Llanelli, on the day he died, they found Mr Beynon unresponsive and slumped on the floor with his back against the wall of a house, “bleeding profusely” from the neck, the court heard.
Mr West, a former police constable with Dyfed-powys Police, said he shouted “Hello” twice, before Mr Beynon sprang to his feet in a single movement, and stumbled towards the officers saying: “I want to die!”