Shownotes
"I remember asking them because I remember wanting to know what had happened. I mean, he’s not just dropped down dead. And they just said that a passer-by had found him dead on the street." Collette Bell, Sheku's partner
It’s now eight years since Sheku’s loved ones were told by police that he had died. That trauma, they say, was compounded by how the news was broken to them.
They claim that a catalogue of errors, miscommunications and lies within hours of Sheku’s death led to a total breakdown of trust that can’t be regained. Police, meanwhile, admit errors were made but insist the intention was never to misrepresent the truth.
In this episode we’ll hear what Sheku’s partner, Colette, and his older sister Kadi, have told the inquiry about how the news was broken to them, the way details of Sheku's contact with police was held back and the impact that had on the trust they had for the police.
And we’ll also find out what Police Scotland has to say about the decisions made in the hours following the tragic events on the 3rd of May.
Written and produced by Karin Goodwin
Research by Tomiwa Folorunso
Recording, editing & sound design by Halina Rifai
Original music by Alan Bryden
Listen to all the evidence from the Sheku Bayoh Inquiry, or find out how to get a ticket to attend in person at www.shekubayohinquiry.scot
To make this podcast we’re spent hours listening to all of the evidence so we can summarise it for you, our listeners. And we need your support to do more.
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Script for episode four: The death message
INTRO:
Karin: Early on Sunday, 3 May 2015 Police Scotland’s control room starts to receive calls.
CLIP 1: Hello, there’s a black man, a black man with a knife on Hayfield Road in Kirkcaldy
https://www.shekubayohinquiry.scot/node/170
Time code [5-9seconds]
Police arrive at the scene and within minutes Sheku Bayoh is down on the ground.
After being restrained by up to six officers, he stops breathing.
Many details of what happened that morning are in dispute. His devastated family are still searching for answers.
They want to know what role race played in Sheku’s death. They claim he is Scotland’s George Floyd.
CLIP 3: [From Kadi interview] Sheku died here in Scotland. And we as a family are fighting for changes to happen in Scotland. No family should suffer the way that we are suffering.
Police refute this.
Now a public inquiry - launched in May 2022– is trying to find out what really happened.
Timecode: 13:33
Its purpose is to seek to ascertain the truth. And to that purpose I am fully committed.
https://www.shekubayohinquiry.scot/hearings/preliminary-hearing-1
Timecode: 13:33
Welcome to Sheku Bayoh: the Inquiry – a podcast series from The Ferret.
Episode four: The death message
Karin: I’m Karin Goodwin, co-editor and journalist for The Ferret.
Tomiwa: And I’m Tomiwa Folorunso, a freelance writer and editor.
Welcome back to our podcast about the Sheku Bayoh Inquiry, which is investigating one of the highest profile deaths in Scottish police custody to date.
Karin: It’s now eight years since Sheku’s loved ones were told by police that he had died. That trauma, they say, was compounded by how the news was broken to them.
They claim that a catalogue of errors, miscommunications and lies within hours of Sheku’s death led to a total breakdown of trust that can’t be regained.
Tomiwa: Police, meanwhile, admit errors were made but insist the intention was never to misrepresent the truth.
So in this episode we’ll hear what Sheku’s partner, Colette, and his older sister Kadi, have told the inquiry about how the news was broken to them.
And we’ll also find out what Police Scotland has to say about the decisions made in the hours following the tragic events on the 3rd of May.
Karin: If you’ve not listened to the first three episodes of our series about hearing one, we suggest you go back to those first.
Karin: But for now, let’s go back to the Fife town of Kirkcaldy on the morning of 3 May 2015.
Tomiwa: It’s about 7.30 on Sunday morning and Sheku’s partner Collette Bell is staying at her mum Lorraine’s house, along with her three month old baby boy.
She’s close to her mum. So when Sheku goes out with friends – like he did last night – she stays over with her new baby.
But this morning she hears not from Sheku, but his friend Zahid. Here’s what she told the inquiry about that call.
CLIP 4: I remember receiving a phone call and him sounding quite panicked on the phone, and he was kind of stuttering, trying to say what he was trying to say, and he had said "Nothing to worry about, everything's okay, I'm okay, but Shek's attacked me", and I had said "What do you mean, why, what's gone on?" And he was like "Don't worry, I'm all right, but I just wanted you to know and I don't want you to go home”
Timecode: 30: 34
https://www.shekubayohinquiry.scot/hearings/evidence-collette-bell-09022023-am
Karin: She’s immediately worried, she says, because these two friends are like brothers. They don’t fight.
And Shek - as she calls her partner - is never violent. He’s kind, laidback, always happy. What can be going on?
She wakes her mum to tell her, hands over the baby, dresses hurriedly and drives to her nearby home on Arran Crescent, 15 minutes away, looking for Shek.
Tomiwa: As soon as she gets there she knows something isn’t right. For a start, the door is unlocked.
CLIP 5: I remember opening the door, and I'm kind of shouting "Shek", and I go into the living room and I'm shouting him, and as I come out of the living room and look straight on -- it looks straight on to the kitchen, and the back door was open, the kitchen door. There's coats in front of our sink on the floor, and there was fridge magnets all over the floor and out into the garden, which was really strange, and then I remember running upstairs shouting on Shek to find him.
Karin: In the bedroom the small television and other bits and pieces are on the floor and she remembers wondering - what’s happened? She tries to call him.
CLIP 5b: and I hear his phone ringing in the kitchen and his phone is in the corner of the kitchen on the floor, and I just started to panic straightaway.”
Timecode: 32.48
https://www.shekubayohinquiry.scot/hearings/evidence-collette-bell-09022023-am
Tomiwa: She phones her mum and then calls Zahid again, she’s taken aback by how concerned he is for her safety. Still she gets back in her car to drive around the streets to see if she can spot Sheku but he’s nowhere to be seen. She calls her mum a second time. And it’s her mum who suggests Collete should call the police.
Karin: Here’s the call she made at 8.36am:
I received a phone call from my boyfriend‘s best friend saying that he’s beaten them up like really really bad and he’s scared for safety and I’ve gone home and the door’s wide open my kitchen is trashed and all my boyfriend stuff, like his jacket and his phone, is in the house and he’s missing. I don’t, I mean his best friend is worried he’s going to hurt someone else. It’s totally out of character for him
Timecode: 00:02-0:46
https://www.shekubayohinquiry.scot/node/625
As Collette drives back to mum’s, she is less than a mile away from the A&E department of Victoria Hospital where staff are working to save Sheku’s life. In less than half an hour he will be pronounced dead.
Tomiwa: And back at Kirkcaldy police station, the officers who restrained him have been told to stand down from duty. They are waiting together in the canteen, unsure of what will happen next.
Upstairs in the station, detective inspector Colin Robson has returned from Hayfield Road, where Sheku was restrained by police.
He’s in a briefing with Graeme Dursley, a detective sergeant, along with three detective constables. All four have been brought in from, a nearby station, to provide "extra resource".
We’ll tell you more about the investigating team and the revolving cast of officers and senior figures involved next time.
Karin: But early that morning the top priority of this newly forming team was to find out the identity of the “black male” – taken to hospital after being restrained by police.
All they know is his condition is critical.
And it is while they are gathered that Collette’s call, the one we just heard, comes in.
Tomiwa: Here’s what DS Dursley told the inquiry about her call.
CLIP 7: Roundabout this time there was the linked call card that had come in where Mr Bayoh's partner had called in reporting concerns for him. So what I do remember was thinking, "This could be linked and this needs to be actioned quickly.
Timecode: 1:20:46 to 1:21:06
https://www.shekubayohinquiry.scot/hearings/evidence-ds-graeme-dursley-28022023-am
The three DCs at the briefing - they’re called Parker, Michell and Clayton – are dispatched to Collette’s house, arriving at about nine o’clock. Colette arrives with her mother and baby boy shortly after.
Karin: Inside the house officers see pictures of Sheku and start to become increasingly convinced that the man from Hayfield Road, and Collette Bell’s missing partner are one and the same.
Here’s what DC Mitchell remembers.
A. …from what we were told it was a black male, big build and obviously the fact that the phone and the keys were sitting there as well. There was a few things that we were kind of putting together and thought well, this may well be the same guy. The fact that there had been a disturbance in the house as well, the door had been left open. It just was seeming more and more likely that this was unfortunately the same guy.
Timecode: 51:42 to 52.51
https://www.shekubayohinquiry.scot/hearings/evidence-dc-andrew-mitchell-01022023-am
Tomiwa: DC Parker steps outside to update DS Dursley, who’s back at the station. It’s then he’s told the man, who we know is Sheku, has died.
Dursley asks the officers to “seize and secure” the house for police forensics and to bring Collette back to the police station.
In evidence, officers say it’s normal to seize a home in these circumstances. They don’t need a warrant if they have Collette’s consent which, they say, she was happy to give.
Karin: But Collette told the inquiry she wasn’t clear about what was happening or why. She remembers feeling confused and frightened.
It was clear that officers knew more than they were telling her. And yet when she asked questions they kept repeating that they had just come on shift, and knew nothing - that she should come down to the police station to find out more.
I think they had said something like "You'll need to get some things together because this could be the beginning of a crime scene", and that really took me aback. I was shocked, and I think it made me worry even more that they were saying that.
I think I was just thinking worst case scenario, because I do remember, whilst we were getting a bag together, going upstairs into the bedroom and I was feeding -- sorry. (Pause). I remember my mum was looking out the window. And she was saying: "They're covering the garden with polythene" and I just remember saying: "Shek's dead".
Timecode: 59:50- 1:01:13
https://www.shekubayohinquiry.scot/hearings/evidence-collette-bel l-09022023-am
Tomiwa: Collette drives with her mum and her 15-week-old son to the station where they are ushered into a police interview room with hard chairs and a table.
DC Parker has by now been briefed by DS Dursley. In this small, bare room he delivers the news of her partner’s death. In police speak this is known as “the death message”.
But, under instruction from superiors he does not tell her that Sheku had been stopped by police immediately before his death.
In Collette’s evidence she says she is told: 'There's no easy way of saying this. There's been a body found that matches your partner's description.”
Karin: That phrase - “body found” is a striking one in the circumstances. She is asked by Angela Graham KC how sure she is that is what she heard.
Here’s how she responds:
CLIP10: I would swear on my children's life. No ups, downs, maybes. I didn't misunderstand anything. I remember those words being told to me like it was yesterday, and there's no hesitation in my mind that they said "There's been a body found that matches your partner's description". Timecode 1:07:32 - 1.8:40
https://www.shekubayohinquiry.scot/hearings/evidence-collette-bell-09022023-am
Karin: In her statement to the inquiry, read to her by Graham, she remembers how upset she was. But once she’d calmed down enough to speak she had so many questions. What’s happened to him? Has he collapsed? Was he wounded? Was he stabbed? Where was he found?
CLIP10B: I remember asking them because I remember wanting to know what had happened. I mean, he’s not just dropped down dead. And they just said that a passer-by had found him dead on the street.
Timecode: 1:10:04-1:10:19
https://www.shekubayohinquiry.scot/hearings/evidence-collette-bell-09022023-am
Karin: What Collette understands from this is that her partner, Sheku, has been murdered.
Eight years on the inquiry is trying to understand why she was not told the truth about what had happened.
Under questioning DC Parker denies that he told her Sheku was found dead, or that he was found by a passer-by.
CLIP 11:“All I can remember from then from -- as we know, it was quite a short statement, a very bland one, as I have said. Her initial reaction -- she obviously was extremely upset and kept saying "It's not him, it's not him, why do you think it's him?" So that was when I give her an explanation as to why we believed it to be Sheku Bayoh at that time, so I give her a rough description, but nothing was discussed where how he was found because, in effect, we didn't know that either. I didn't know that. Andy didn't know that. So we would be pretty much giving information that we weren't party to, so no one said anything about a passer-by.”
Timecode: 20:03 - 20:35
https://www.shekubayohinquiry.scot/hearings/evidence-dc-wayne-parker-02022023-am
Tomiwa: He is, he claims, just passing the message on as instructed and is not authorised to say more.
Karin: But while giving evidence DS Dursley shakes his head as he admits police got the...
