A police force has been fined almost a quarter of a million pounds over the death of a church caretaker with mental health issues who died after a heavy belt was placed across his face while in custody.
The office of the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall admitted breaches under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 following the death of Thomas Orchard. The force was fined £234,500 at Bristol crown court.
It is the first time a British police force has admitted to an offence in such circumstances and is seen as a landmark case by campaigners, who believe police forces and officers almost always escape justice after preventable deaths in custody.
Orchard, 32, was arrested and taken to a police station in Exeter in October 2012 following a disturbance on the street. During his detention, officers placed a US-made emergency restraint belt (ERB) across his face. Orchard had a cardiac arrest and died in hospital seven days later.
Devon and Cornwall police admitted breaching the act on the basis that there were failings over issues such as how officers were trained in the use of the ERB. The force does not accept the belt directly caused Orchard’s death and, following a trial of issue last month, the judge, Julian Lambert, concluded he could not be sure the method of restraint did contribute.
During his detention, Orchard, who had paranoid schizophrenia, was restrained and an ERB was placed across his face. The restraints were removed and he was left in a locked cell, where he lay apparently motionless for 12 minutes before custody staff re-entered and started resuscitation. A postmortem examination later found he had died from a brain injury seven days after the cardiac arrest.
Orchard’s family are dismayed the judge has not accepted the application of the belt led to his death.
It was approved as a limb restraint in 2002 but by 2003, force policy was changed to advocate the use of the ERB over the face.
“This occurred without any risk assessment or any research being carried out on the effects of use of the emergency response belt as a hood,” the judge said.
“The prosecution properly characterises this as a fundamentally flawed process. This was accompanied with a lack of uniformity in training.” In mitigation, the force said the belt had been used around 500 times about the head before Orchard’s death without reports of injury.
The judge said: “I appreciate that there is a significant body of evidence that no one was, in fact, killed or very seriously injured because of the use of the belt as a spit or bite guard. It is, however, my assessment that it was only a matter of time before someone was going to be.
“The ERB didn’t automatically restrict breathing when used as a hood but it had the capacity to do so in certain situations. If breathing were restricted in an excited and possibly delirious detainee, perhaps not in good health, I considered it stood to reason that the predicate very serious consequences might ensue.”
Orchard’s family said they were leaving court with “no sense of real justice”.
His father, Ken Orchard, said: “Investigations over the past six and a half years have highlighted some criminally appalling health and safety practices which desperately needed changing.
“We hope more than anything that the residents of Devon and Cornwall will be at least a little safer today as a result of Thomas’s death.”
