Nicola Sturgeon has assured the family of Sheku Bayoh, the Sierra Leonean man who died on a pavement in Kirkcaldy, Fife, minutes after being detained by police in May, that she will give “serious consideration” to holding a public inquiry into his death.
The family of the 31-year-old trainee gas engineer and father of two spent over an hour discussing the case with Scotland’s first minister and the cabinet secretary for justice, Michael Matheson, on Tuesday. The family believe that post-mortem evidence suggests Bayoh died of positional asphyxia after being brought to the ground by four police officers.
They asked the Scottish government to consider the possibility of holding a public inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005, for which there is already legal precedent in Scotland.
Aamer Anwar, Scotland’s leading civil liberties lawyer, who is acting for the family, has previously described how within seconds of confronting Bayoh on the street at 7.10am on 3 May, officers had sprayed him with CS gas and pepper spray, even though he was unarmed and had not initially resisted arrest – despite eyewitness reports suggesting he had been wielding a knife.
The Bayoh family has previously met with the PIRC, the Scottish police misconduct watchdog, whom they have criticised because of a 32-day delay before the officers involved were interviewed or forced to hand over their notebooks.
Anwar noted that, while a fatal accident inquiry into Bayoh’s death will be mandatory, the family did not believe that such an investigation would have sufficient remit to cover the wider issues of deaths in custody, use of restraint techniques, racism, lack of police accountability and the insufficient powers of PIRC. Nor would its findings be binding on Police Scotland.
Anwar added that the family welcomed Sturgeon’s “compassion and support” and her assurance that the Scottish government “will not shy away from learning lessons and bring about fundamental change if necessary”.
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