• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• UK: Another black "restraint" death in custody?

UK: Another black "restraint" death in custody?

01 January 1999

On January 24 nearly 500 people joined the family of Roger Sylvester in a vigil for the 30-year old black man who was pronounced dead at Whittington hospital, north London a week after being restrained by Metropolitan police officers. He had been detained on January 11 by eight officers who had been called to a disturbance in Tottenham, north London. Roger, who was found naked and banging on his frontdoor, was restrained and handcuffed before being held under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act and driven, still naked, to St Anne's psychiatric hospital. There he was restrained again before being attached to a life-support machine. A week later he was dead.

Roger's family have contacted Inquest, who will be acting on their behalf, and have expressed concern about the restraint methods used by the police and a number of unexplained bruises to his face. His death recalls that of another black man, Christopher Alder (see Statewatch Vol. 8, no. 6) and has every indication of being the latest in a long list of fatal police restraints - Brian Douglas, Ibrahima Sey, Wayne Douglas, Joy Gardiner and Shiji Lapite - on black people. It is clear that despite Metropolitan police rhetoric to the contrary, and in light of the imminent publication of the Macpherson Report on the police investigation into the death of Stephen Lawrence, the lessons of these deaths have not been learned.

Inquest press release 22.1.99.