Man who died after arrest ‘wanted control of drug den,’ inquest told
AMAN who died hours after leaving police custody allegedly wanted to “control a drug den” where he was arrested, a witness has told an inquest into his death.
Mohamud Hassan, 24, died at his friend’s flat in Newport Road, Cardiff, on Saturday, January 9, 2021.
The flat – which belonged to Rachel Evans, who said she was a friend of Mr Hassan – was regularly being used by Class A drug users who would come and go throughout the day, the inquest heard.
They included Maxine Campbell and Donna Mulholland, witness Paul Coultis told Pontypridd Coroners’ Court yesterday.
Mr Coultis said the flat also began to be used by friends Mohamud Hassan and Jamal Hassan, although the pair did not tend to do Class A drugs and would instead regularly smoke cannabis. Mr Coultis told the inquest he would regularly use the flat for a couple of hours a day himself for “a spliff and a coffee” as he lived in the same block.
Mr Coultis explained how many of those who used the flat would take drugs including cocaine, spice and heroin – although he never saw Mr Hassan use any of these drugs. Those in the flat would often sleep for large periods of the day, occasionally waking and taking more drugs.
“They were never there before but then I spent three and a half months in hospital after an operation and when I got back to the block they were a regular fixture,” Mr Coultis said of Mr Hassan and Jamal Hassan’s presence at the flat. Giving evidence, Mr Coultis said Mr Hassan and Jamal Hassan “wanted to have power or authority”.
On the evening of Thursday, January 7, 2021, which was the night before officers from South Wales Police arrested Mr Hassan at the flat, Mr Coultis said he and Mr Hassan had a physical altercation. Referring to Mr Hassan by his nickname, Jingles, he said: “I was on the sofa and Jingles wanted my seat for some reason. I think it was an age thing. They wanted that power or authority over me and Maxine and we weren’t having any of it. A few punches were thrown. It all calmed down straight away and we shook hands.”
But the following day, when officers arrested Mr Hassan, there had been a second and more serious altercation at the flat. “I went to the flat,” Mr Coultis recalled of the evening of Friday, January 8, 2021. “Maxine, Rachel and Donna were there. We were junkies at the time – spice, heroin, crack, weed, drinking – I’d have had a mixture of all of it in my system. It was great – everyone was having a good night. Jingles and his mate were sharing brandy between everyone. I fell asleep on the sofa next to Maxine. Then I woke up to being kicked, hit and punched and so was Maxine. We were trying to kick them off us but we couldn’t. They were kicking the s*** out of us. I climbed out the window and got back to my hostel and told the staff, and they gave me the number to phone the police. The police came and tried to drag them out but they were resisting.”
Alex West, counsel for the inquest, asked Mr Coultis what might have started such an altercation, to which Mr Coultis replied: “They were the drug dealers in the flats. They wanted to control the flats. It was a power thing.”
In a statement signed by Ms Evans in the days after Mr Hassan’s death, Ms Evans described the incident as “chaos and people were hitting each other”.
When police arrived at the flat at around 9.40 that evening the court heard Mr Hassan was not compliant with them. Separate officers have told the court Mr Hassan spat a mixture of blood and saliva in the direction of one of the officers through an open window. Mr Hassan had a cut lip at the time of the incident following a fall, in which he suffered a lacerated lip and lost a tooth.
Initially reluctant, Ms Evans allowed the officers into the dark and unruly flat referred to by Pc Evans, one of the officers at the scene, as a “drug den”.
In a struggle they pushed Mr Hassan to the floor and placed his hands behind his back before handcuffing him.
During the episode the hearing heard that Mr Hassan told officers he was “having a fit”.
Officers told the court Mr Hassan had been “kicking out” at them and so they felt their actions were proportionate.
PC Whitehall and PC Evans, who both gave evidence yesterday, said they did not believe Mr Hassan was having a fit at the time because he wasn’t showing typical signs.
Mr Hassan’s death led to a series of protests outside Cardiff Bay Police Station in the following months. But in November the Independent Office of Police Misconduct (IOPC) “did not find that the time spent in custody was a contributory factor in his death”.
The inquest continues.