What happened
Michael Powell, 38, known as Mikey, lived with his mother in Lozells, Birmingham, and had three children.
Late on 6 September 2003 he returned to her home and smashed the windows of a parked car, and she called the police.
Officers arrived believing he was in possession of a firearm and drove their vehicle at him, knocking him over. Others restrained him using CS spray and a Casco baton. He was handcuffed and taken on the floor of a police van to Thornhill Road police station.
He was carried into a cell, where officers found him unconscious. He was taken to City Hospital and pronounced dead on 7 September 2003.
The outcome
The inquest opened on 4 November 2009 at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall, before Deputy Coroner Stephen Campbell, and ran for just over six weeks. On 18 December 2009 the jury returned a narrative verdict finding that the cause of death was positional asphyxia.
It found he was more vulnerable because of contact with a moving vehicle, CS gas, a Casco baton, being restrained on the ground while suffering a psychosis, and extreme exertion.
It also found he was placed on his side in the van, transported at an angle between his front and face down, and was on his front when the custody sergeant saw him.
Ten officers were charged with criminal offences and cleared at Leicester Crown Court. The Independent Police Complaints Commission then decided no officer should face disciplinary proceedings. Civil claims followed, and the force later apologised to the family.
What went wrong
The restraint did not stop at the handcuffs. A man hit by a vehicle, sprayed and struck was loaded into a van and driven to a station, and nobody owned his position.
It changed at every handover: on his side when loaded, angled in transit, on his front on arrival. Each was a moment when somebody could have reset it.
The commission’s recommendations read as an inventory of what was missing: an end to transporting prisoners on vehicle floors, guidance on safe lifting and carriage, and training on positional asphyxia and acute behavioural disorder.
What it teaches
Transporting a restrained person face down on a van floor is a restraint decision, not a logistics decision. The hold, the load and the journey are one continuous risk.
Second, accumulation. Vehicle contact, CS spray, baton strikes, a psychosis and exertion were recorded as separate factors. Together they describe a man who could not tolerate a prone position, and nobody added them up.
The third is the handover. Every transfer is a place where the position can be seen and corrected, and that works only if a named person is accountable at each one.
Questions for the room
- He was on his side when loaded and on his front when he arrived. What happened in between, and who should have known?
- You are the custody sergeant meeting that van. What do you do before anyone is carried anywhere?
- The commission recommended a ban on van-floor transport only after this death. What would have had to be true for that ban to exist before 2003?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: confirmed. The record holds two sources: West Midlands Police Authority’s report of 25 March 2010 and BBC News reporting of September 2023. The verdict and its date come from INQUEST’s release issued that day, and the force’s report confirms the inquest ran six weeks from November 2009.
The inquest came six years after the death. Accounts that date it to 2004 are wrong.
No officer is named. Ten officers were acquitted, and that belongs on the page.
Our [vulnerable and volatile persons training](/training-solutions/vulnerable-volatile-persons) covers the accumulation of risk that turns a restraint into an asphyxiation.
Sources
- West Midlands Police Authority, 25 March 2010 · `01_source_text/pos-asphyxia-local/Police-Authority-Organisational-Response-to-the-Deaths-of-Michael-Powell-and-Linda-Burt.txt`
- BBC News, September 2023
- INQUEST, 18 December 2009
Reviewed 20 October 2026.