Grieving mum claims report fails to deliver closure or justice

An Aberdeen mum slammed authorities for making her wait almost a decade for a long-overdue report into her son’s police custody death, accusing an inquiry of failing to deliver closure or justice.

Sharon Fenty, 54, told The Press and Journal that she hasn’t been able to grieve since her 20-year-old son Warren died alone in a Kittybrewster police station cell in 2014.

She also told The P&J that, after reading the findings of Warren’s fatal accident inquiry (FAI), she holds Police Scotland responsible for allowing him to succumb to a methadone overdose.

Sheriff Principal Derek Pyle found that “institutional failures” caused Police Scotland to miss opportunities that, if taken, would “likely” have avoided tragedy by getting the young man life-saving treatment before it was too late.

“If you’re not safe in a police custody cell, where are you safe?” Sharon asked, adding: “Young boys shouldn’t be going into police cells and then their parents being told that they’re dead.”

Reacting to the 39-page report, Mrs Fenty called for heads to roll.

“Police Scotland should have staffed their custody centre much better than they did, with more experienced staff, who knew what they were supposed to do, and did it properly,” Sharon went on.

“How did police bosses think two people were enough to look after 42 detainees at the same time?

“I hold Police Scotland responsible for Warren’s death because he was in their custody when he needed life-saving help and they didn’t get it to him.”

The Fenty family has branded the determination “not worth the paper it’s written on” after claiming its conclusions are “nothing they didn’t already know”.

“We have not got justice today with the publication of the FAI. We have not got justice in a system that says the state did not keep Warren safe,” said Sharon.

“We didn’t learn anything today that we didn’t know 10 years ago - where is the mention of consequences for the wrong-doers?”

The Fenty’s much-loved son, brother and nephew, who they described as “lively and loving, with a huge heart” said he’d been robbed of “so many possibilities ahead of him”.

They added that the first-time drug user had been badly let down by his custodians at the time.

“This is something that young people do every day, and it shouldn’t be a death sentence,” Sharon said.

Police Scotland offers “deepest condolences” and assurances of safety improvements

Police Scotland said it had fully co-operated with an independent probe by its independent regulator, the office of the Police Investigations & Review Commissioner.