Police fined £234k after man they gagged and bound died of his injuries
A POLICE force has been fined £234,000 after putting a heavy belt over the face of a vulnerable church caretaker who later died.
Thomas Orchard, 32, died in hospital seven days after he was arrested and taken to a police station by officers from Devon and Cornwall Police in 2012.
Mr Orchard was restrained and an emergency response belt (ERB) was placed across his face for five minutes to prevent spitting or biting.
In a landmark conviction in 2018, the force admitted breaches under the Health and Safety at Work Act. It is the first time a British police force has admitted to an offence in such circumstances and is seen as a milestone case by campaigners, who believe forces and officers almost always escape justice after preventable deaths in custody.
A paranoid schizophrenic who had had mental health issues since he was a teenager, Mr Orchard was arrested in Exeter city centre in October 2012 on suspicion of a public order offence. His erratic behaviour had led police to think he was drunk or on drugs. Footage from the police station showed him, bound and gagged, being carried to a cell where he was placed face down on a mattress.
Despite the huge fine, Mr Orchard’s father Ken said the family were left with ‘no sense of real justice’. ‘Investigations over the past six and a half years have highlighted some criminally appalling health and safety practices which desperately needed changing,’ he added. ‘We hope more than anything that the residents of Devon and Cornwall will be at least a little safer today as a result of Thomas’s death.’ Last month, Judge Julian Lambert ruled that he could not be sure that the ERB was a contributory factor in Mr Orchard’s death in October 2012. But yesterday he fined the force £234,500 at a sentencing hearing at Bristol Crown Court. It was also ordered to pay £20,515 in costs. Outside court, Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer said: ‘Devon and Cornwall Police is a very different organisation six and a half years on from Thomas Orchard’s death in terms of the training delivered to staff, awareness of mental health crisis and our ability to identify and manage violent, vulnerable people coming into police contact.’