Sheku: Police ‘should have backed off’

A retired police inspector said he would have encouraged officers to “give more time and space” if he was in contact with them during the moments they approached Sheku Bayoh.

At a public inquiry into the 31-year-old’s death in 2015, Steven Stewart said he was on duty as an overview supervisor on the day Mr Bayoh died. The inquiry heard he was in a different room when information about the officers arriving at the scene had been given to the control room.

He said the officers should have been given a stay safe message before arriving at the scene where Mr Bayoh was, adding: “I would want them to have in their minds before they were entering that street, ‘we need to take our time, we need to make a dynamic risk assessment, and we need to feedback.'”

Mr Bayoh died in handcuffs and sustained multiple injuries after officers responded to calls from the public about a man brandishing a knife and behaving erratically in Kirkcaldy.