now on bbc news — panorama. i cannot breathe. deep breaths. i cannot breathe... i think if they hadn't used excessive force he would still be here today. this man died after being restrained by police. chanting: i can't breathe! these same words were uttered two years later by george floyd whose death sparked outrage on both sides of the atlantic. in the uk, if you're black, you're more than twice as likely as a white person to die in police custody. relax and you won't get hurt.

this has got to stop. he's not alive today. because of the colour of his skin. panorama investigates unanswered questions in two british deaths... ..and, in one, reveals new allegations of police cover—up. what you're saying is that those accounts are false? yes. kev. are you 0k? this is kevin clarke. he suffers episodes of mental ill health. can i feel your hand?

police officers have come to help him. in a little over two hours, he will be dead. archive: a man has died after being restrained - by police in south east london. officers say they were called to lewisham on friday afternoon, where they found the 35—year—old in an agitated state. i never met anyone like kevin. he was a unique person. he was everything to us. they took away my...my diamond. kevin clarke loved football. he was athletic. and he was close to his friends and family.

he was literally like a father figure, he was so caring and took care of us, anything we wanted and needed. and he's a big, big piece of my life that'sjust been taken away. kevin was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia as a teenager. at the time of his death, he'd been living in supported accommodation. he managed himself. he did everything just normal. it was only when he had a breakdown, then you just noticed a change in his demeanour. more than two years after kevin's death, an inquest began in london. in court, his family watched his final hours play out in real time. i'm a police officer. we've had a call from where you're living at the moment. the inquest heard kevin's support team called police, fearing he was beginning to relapse. is there any reason that you're

standing out in the street? the officer decided he wasn't a threat to himself or anyone else. i'm not going to stop you from chillin' on the street. not long after kevin's last seen at his supported accommodation, he finds his way to this street here. by this time, he's disorientated. he's in the full grip of a psychotic episode. and it's through the gaps between these houses that he finds his way into the school playing fields. i saw him walking... marco piccioni saw what happened next from his garden. i can clearly remember... this is probably the thing i remember the best, is that he was in a bad state, you know, someone needing help. did he appear violent or aggressive or anything not at all. he's just someone that is

really mentally in a big crisis, i guess. yeah. that was obvious. all right, mate, just down there. just through there. by the time police arrive, kevin is clearly in trouble. you all right, mate? hello. drunk, i think. all right. stay there, mate. you all right? yeah. 0k. take a breath, take a breath, just stay there. realising he's having a mental health episode, they call an ambulance. the whole incident is being captured on multiple cameras worn by the attending officers. panorama asked a leading expert in the use of restraint and police tactics to analyse the footage. here, kevin takes an officer's hand. she told the inquestjury she thought he had demonstrated "extraordinary strength" and had broken her hand. roll over a minute, mate. she's going to look at your bus pass, all right? it's hurting.

you're hurting my hand. easy, easy. to suggest, from what we've just seen there that he was l hurting the officer's hand, is frankly nonsense. - what does it look like he's doing? it looks like he's - reaching out for help. and as soon as she says that "you're hurting my hand," i he takes his hand away. professor leslie thomas qc represented kevin clarke's family at the inquest. he specialises in cases like these. he wasn't a threat to anybody. and actually, when you watch the bodycam footage very carefully, you see that one of the officers actually puts her hand on her taser. as if she's ready to use it. and when you stop and ask yourself what was the behaviour that kevin had done to merit immediately being surrounded, all the officers stepping in, is hejust got to his knees.

easy, mate. easy. nice and easy, mate. we're just here to help. this is when the fateful decision to restrain kevin is taken. it's as if without talking about it, they all have the same mind—set, that this is somebody who needs to be restrained. easy. easy, mate. nice and easy. that's it. and that one. that's it. and what's that mind—set based on? fear, perhaps? fear of what they see. what do they see? a big, black man. fear. the man is now in handcuffs. he's become quite aggressive to us. i they need to hurry up. has anyone got any leg restraints they can -

bring down, please? the officer has told control that he's become quite aggressive towards them. well, it's simply not true. he's not being aggressive at all, and he's not capable of being aggressive towards them. the suggestion of leg restraints, what on earth for? there is absolutely no justification at all for restraining him. and what they've done is just totally wrong and dangerous. so why did it happen? bas javid is a commander in the metropolitan police. which element of kevin's behaviour made it appropriate to restrain him? it's a fair question. so i think that there was evidence and, you know, the circumstances at the time, that he was in a position that he may well have harmed himself or other people. that was what the officers�* findings were. now, i'm not saying that's right or wrong. what i'm asking you about, specifically, is whether you think the restraint in those circumstances was appropriate? yes or no?

look, clearly it wasn't. clearly the restraint wasn't appropriate, no. black people are three times more likely to have force used on them than their white counterparts. how do you explain that? i explain it by accepting that that's disproportionate, that it's not right. we need to understand the reasons why. is there racial discrimination and bias and prejudice within an organisation? absolutely. that's a reflection of society. in yours? yes, there is. yeah. four minutes into the restraint, and up to six officers are holding kevin on the ground. listen, listen. and what he says is, "i can't breathe. you're killing me." several times. breathe. i cannot breathe... deep breaths.

eight minutes later, police and paramedics discuss how to get kevin to the ambulance. they seem to lack urgency and fail to carry out a proper assessment of him. 15 minutes into the restraint, they decide to try and walk him to the ambulance. then, an officer draws kevin's hood over his head and uses it to pull him along. come on, walk for us, kevin. what was your reaction to that? i was disgusted. they were meant to be checking his breathing and his vital signs — how can you do that with the hood over the head if he is meant to be... ..the patient? so, not as a lawyer, not as a qc, not as a professor, just as another human being, i was disgusted.

he is forced to walk, though he's still bound at the knees. man groans he's gone down, he's gone down. hold on. check his pulse. sit him up, sit him up. doubled over, still cuffed behind his back, his breathing is impaired. he's been restrained for 19 minutes. now, barely conscious, he is in fact dying. a year before kevin died, a review of deaths in custody in england and wales highlighted concerns around police stereotyping black people because of their perceived size or strength. the evidence that we had was that many officers don't have very much to do with black communities, other than when

they're policing. many of them described them, in their statements that they prepared afterwards, as being this huge man with superhuman strength, etc, and i don't challenge that that's what they believed at that time, or that was their perception, but the reality was very, very different. they were just black? yes. if you're black in the uk, you're more than twice as likely as a white person to die in or following police custody. kevin clarke is one of at least 27 black men to die in such circumstances in the past 15 years. relax and you won't get hurt. some were suffering from mental breakdowns or altered behaviour at the time... ..including one man in scotland.

newsreader: the family of a man who died in police custody - in fife are demanding answers about what happened to him. sheku bayoh was detained after an incident in kirkcaldy. he was fine, i saw him the day before. i couldn't believe that sheku is no more and my whole life changed. my whole life changed. yeah, i brought these flowers. these are the flowers we brought for his birthday. she prays we haven't got closure yet because we don't know the truth. we just wanted to know how my brother died and why. sheku bayoh had moved to kirkcaldy in fife in 2000 tojoin his sister kadi. he worked as a trainee gas engineer. he had a partner and

was father to two boys. he really lived for his boys, he was overprotective of his boys. they will never get to see fatherly love from sheku. through the night of may 2nd, 2015, sheku bayoh had been at a friend's house. he'd taken drugs, mdma and a hallucinogenic called flakka. friends said it dramatically altered his behaviour and he'd become aggressive. he then made his way home to his own house when he picked up a knife. within a few minutes, he's on this street here — this is hayfield road, and it's 7am, it's a sunday morning, and the place is deserted. he's behaving erratically, so he's spotted by local residents who assumed that he's high on drink or drugs and they phone the police. they tell police they've seen a man on the street with a knife.

cctv footage shows the first police arriving. bayoh no longer has a knife, a fact confirmed by statements taken later. discharging their cs sprays and drawing batons. bayoh is brought to the ground within 45 seconds. a witness sees up to six officers kneeling or lying across sheku bayoh. she hears him scream, "get off me." by the time they do get off, it's too late, he's unconscious. the officers begin cpr. it's less than five minutes since the police first arrived and sheku bayoh is dying here on the street with his legs and his arms bound. sheku bayoh's cause of death would later be given as "sudden death of a man intoxicated with drugs whilst being restrained". a postmortem report revealed 23 separate injuries, including a broken rib

and deep cuts to his head. they've got information that he may be going through a crisis, he may be intoxicated. they could have contained that situation for longer to try and really exhaust every possible effort in trying to bring it to an end without using force, and particularly the high—level force that they used. the officers initially refused to provide statements to investigators. instead, 11 days after his death, the scottish police federation, which represents rank and file officers, spoke for them. it said bayoh had violently attacked a female officer, nicole short. the police federation gave out| a statement which said a petite female police officer- was chased and subjected to a violent and unprovoked attack by a very large male. she was punched, - kicked and stamped on. the officer believed _

she was about to be murdered — but for the intervention of other officers, - that was a likely outcome. the allegation bayoh had kicked and stamped on pc short received prominent coverage. when a black person dies in police custody, one - of the first things that often happens is there is a leak . to the media that police officers believed there i was a threat to their life, that police officers had . no other option. but unknown to the public and the media, there was another civilian witness

that day and he'd given a statement to the body which investigates deaths in custody in scotland, known as pirc. identified in the case files as witness r, kevin nelson has never spoken publicly before. so what did you see? he was just walking, as if there was nobody there, like you would walk along any street. he wasjust walking. it was like he was unaware that there was other people there or purposely ignoring them. just walking. kevin was watching from inside a nearby house on this side of hayfield road. he says he then saw bayoh being sprayed. bayoh retaliated and punched nicole short, who went down. was there any other contact with bayoh and that officer? no. he was running off. kevin says he saw the events

unfold over a garden hedge and had bayoh's upper body in his sights. you saw bayoh100% of the time during his altercation with nicole short? yes. and just explain again what you saw. i seen him swinging punches towards her. and then what? then he ran off or attempted to run off. kevin's account is supported by the cctv. the footage is grainy but we are able to identify the two key points of the incident. we can see nicole short knocked down here and the action appears to immediately move away and within five seconds, sheku bayoh is brought down and restrained here. when the officers eventually provided statements to pirc investigators, 21 days after the federation first spoke to the media, two of them described a violent stamping attack on nicole short.

those officers were known as officers b and c. they are pcs craig walker and ashley tomlinson. both describe, in very clear detail, sheku bayoh viciously stamping on nicole short. did that happen? no. you're sure? yeah. i don't think he would've had time to stamp at... there was... after the punch, that was it. there was no more attack on her at all. 0fficer b — "i had a clear view of him "and saw him with his right leg in a high, raised position. "he had his arms raised up at right angles to his body "and brought his right foot down in a full force stamp "onto her lower back."

and you say that didn't happen? that never happened. i didn't see him stamping at all or, other than the punch, any raised arms. officer c — ashley tomlinson — says, "i thought he had killed her." "he stomped on her back again." no. what you're saying is that those accounts are false? yes. nicole short, now retired, later said she was unsure she was conscious and only heard she was stamped on when her colleagues told her afterwards. the cctv appears to show her getting back to her feet a few seconds after being struck by sheku bayoh. mike franklin is a former commissioner with the body that investigates police complaints in england and wales. we showed him our evidence. i think there's nothing more serious than a police officer

who gives false information in an investigation where somebody has died. so, without accusing them of lying, i simply say that there's a big conflict in their evidence. two officers who were there say that it did happen. the person to whom it happened didn't mention it, and an eyewitness says it didn't happen. kevin nelson gave his account to investigators two days after the incident. that's 30 days before the officers. given what the officers said about this vicious stamping attack, are you surprised that nobody came back... yes. ..to check with you whether that had happened? yep, not one person. nobody. if you were met with this sort of contradiction in evidence, what would you have done?

i would've been reluctant to sign off the investigation as complete without resolving those two conflicts of evidence. why are you doing this interview? their statements made me out to be lying, which is not fair on me, and it's not fair on sheku and his family that they've made the incident worse than it actually was to justify what had happened, and that's, that's...that�*s not right. what you're saying is, that those accounts are false? yes. we showed kadi the new allegations. it's making me really angry. because five years ago, - the way they painted sheku to be, that's not who he was. and now, it's out there now. in 2018, the crown office in scotland — ultimately in charge of the pirc investigation — said no officer would face criminal charges.

none has faced misconduct charges either. but the questions in this case persist, and a full public inquiry is now under way. police scotland said it has expressed condolences to the bayoh family, that the force would participate fully in the inquiry, whose independence should be respected so that justice could be served. the crown office said it examined eyewitness accounts of police and civilian witnesses, and instructed appropriate investigation. after careful consideration, it was decided there should be no prosecutions but it reserves the right to prosecute should evidence become available. pirc told us its investigation was detailed and extensive, and said, as the public inquiry has now started, it would be inappropriate to comment on any specific aspect. the scottish police federation told us, "serving police officers cannot comment publicly on matters to which they may be called upon to give sworn evidence",

its members "co—operated fully and truthfully with the investigations "that have taken place" and it has seen "compelling material" that mr bayoh "did violently stamp on the back" of nicole short as she lay unconscious. when asked to share this material, the federation told us the inquiry was the proper forum for such matters. deborah coles of the charity inquest provided support to both sheku bayoh and kevin clarke's families, and believes race was a factor in each of their deaths. i think in both cases, there have been attempts to justify what happened by virtue of the extraordinary strength and dangerousness and potential to violence of the two men concerned. and that, to me, speaks about how racial stereotyping that equates black men with dangerousness and violence has seeped into police culture and practice. back in south london, as they

waited for the inquest�*s verdict, wendy and tellecia visited a mural commemorating kevin. i think if they hadn't used excessive force, he would still be here today. like, treat him like a human being and notjust see him as a big, scary black man. hearing from the officers, what's shocked me the most is that a lot of them have said if the situation was to arise again, they would do exactly the same thing. and, to me, that's like no lessons have been learnt. after five days of deliberations, thejury of the police and the

ambulance service. the restraint and making him walk whilst barely conscious the metropolitan police accepted the jury's findings and apologised to kevin's family. in his memory we want to see accountability... ..and real change, notjust in training but the perception and response to black people by the police and other services. the jury was not asked to consider if race played a part in kevin's death. i didn't need to spell out to the jury that race was a factor. to my mind, race was the elephant in the room. sometimes you don't need to spell out the obvious. there's no evidence to suggest in this case, certainly not - that i've seen, that race - or any concern that has been raised from anywhere outside of the family environment... i now, that doesn't mean to say that racial stereotyping -

or concerns around that weren't necessarily a factor. _ i don't know. but what i can say is that, individually, the officers. at the time have to make - an assessment on what they're faced with. are you 0k? the family of kevin clarke believe he was treated differently by police because he was black. the public inquiry into the death of sheku bayoh is expected to last several years. it will investigate whether his race was a factor in his death. it's got to stop. this has to stop. i am weary. i've done too many of these cases. the same questions, the same responses that i was getting 20, 25 years ago. this has got to stop.

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