If he were white, Sheku Bayo would be treated differently – sister

The sister of a man who died after being detained by police has told an inquest that she believes officers would have treated him differently if he had been white.

Kady Johnson said she believes her brother Sheku Bayoh The officers treated him that way “from the get-go” because he was black.

She also said she and her family began to feel “suspicious” after receiving different versions of how her brother died.

Mr Bayoch, 31, died after being tackled to the ground by six police officers Kirkcaldy, Pipein May 2015, and an inquest is investigating the circumstances surrounding his death and whether race was a factor.

Ms Johnson told the inquest: “I feel that if Sheku was white he would have been treated differently and I say this now with great trepidation because I know people will come after me for this, but that’s the way it is i feel

“I feel that if Sheku was white, he was met by the police, they would have approached him differently.

“I feel like they would have treated us as family differently, so to me, because he was black, he was treated the way he was from the very first moment the police met him “.

Ms Johnson said that when two police officers came to tell her of her brother’s death on the afternoon of May 3, they initially said he had been found lying on the road and had died on the way to hospital, but they later returned and told her he had died as a result “violent detention”.

She told the inquest the family were “shocked” and upset when a third officer came to tell them her brother, a father-of-two, had been seen carrying a knife and refusing to obey officers’ commands.

Ms Johnson said the officer told them her brother had punched the policewoman, other officers tackled him to the ground and used spray and he later died in hospital.

Angela Graham Casey, lead counsel for the inquiry, asked how Ms Johnson felt she had been given the changing information.

She replied: “We started to feel suspicious. We started to think, are we really getting the full story, is it true, is the story we’re getting true, is it fictional or not? How can you come and tell me you’ve lost a loved one and you don’t know how to tell me how he died?’

Ms Johnson, a staff nurse, said she thought they would have been treated differently if they were a white family living in Kirkcaldy.

She also said she was immediately concerned when, during their second visit to her home on May 3, officers said Mr Bailleau had been involved in a “violent arrest” and had passed out and died.

When asked if the word ‘violent’ was accurately used, she said: ‘I remember it very clearly because when they mentioned the word ‘violent’ I remember talking to an officer who had experience as a nurse saying, that the forcible arrest means that Sheku must have been ill-treated. and during that time they could have blocked his airway, something like that.

“There were several deaths America it happened during confrontations with black people and the police, and they also died, so our focus was on whether Sheku was treated the same way?’

Ms Johnson also told the inquest she was “shocked and upset” when she was told her brother had punched a police officer.

She said: “That’s not the Sheku I know, that’s not how he was brought up, that’s not his character, so for him to do something like that was very strange.”

The 45-year-old also told the inquest that after Mr Bayoch’s death she agreed to identify his body but told authorities she wanted to wait for her mother to arrive the next day so she could come too.

She said the family were “very upset” when they learned on Tuesday, May 5, that a post-mortem examination had already been carried out before they had a chance to identify him.

Ahead of Ms Johnson’s appearance at the inquest, her family held a vigil outside the grounds of Capital House in Edinburgh.

The family’s lawyer, Aamer Anwar, said at the vigil: “The family has a long road ahead of them and they are still fighting for justice.”

A trainee gas engineer, Mr Bayoch was born in Sierra Leone and moved to the UK when he was 12 years old. Scotland having lived in London for five years.

The inquest before Lord Braccadale will continue on Wednesday.