What happened
Paul Reynolds, also known as Paul Gladwell, was 38 and from Essex, and was at Pontins Holiday Park in Lowestoft with his partner.
On 14 February 2017, after an altercation between guests, security officers licensed by the Security Industry Authority intervened. There was no de-escalation. CCTV showed one officer holding him by the neck in what investigators described as a chokehold, which he and other Pontins staff denied.
Three officers then pinned him prone, facing down, hands behind his back and legs folded, for eleven minutes. Witnesses said he apologised and asked to be let go. One said he had “gone purple”.
Suffolk police were called to reports of a fight. Officers said they believed he was “pretending to sleep” and making “snoring sounds”, and their account did not reflect the restraint used.
The outcome
He could not walk or stand and was thought to be faking it. He was read his rights, sat up, handcuffed and taken to a police van. Officers later realised he was unwell, stopped the van, began CPR and called an ambulance. He died at James Paget University Hospital on 16 February 2017.
The inquest at Suffolk Coroner’s Court ran from 19 April to 11 May 2021 before HM Coroner Jacqueline Devonish and concluded on 7 May 2021. The jury found that the neck hold and the prone restraint were “dangerous, deliberate and unlawful acts” which contributed to the death, and that the neck hold was applied long enough to cause loss of consciousness.
The jury also found that he would have lived had he not been restrained, and would have survived had an ambulance been called and he been placed in the recovery position.
What went wrong
Nobody reduced the force or moved him to a less risky position across eleven minutes. Staff monitored him by glancing at him briefly and did not meet first aid standards for airway, breathing and circulation. When a witness raised concerns, staff diminished them. The duty manager did not oversee welfare monitoring.
Officers were told by the security officers who had been holding him down that he was pretending to sleep, and acted on it. A handover describing what had happened would have changed what they did next.
What it teaches
A recovery position and an ambulance would have saved him, so this death sits in the time after the restraint, where monitoring either happens or does not.
The neck hold and the eleven minutes are what a room remembers. The finding that should change practice is that he was still alive when the hands came off.
Questions for the room
- He was apologising and asking to be let go. What does that tell you about the force being used, and who should have stopped it?
- You are the officer arriving at a man who will not stand and is snoring. What do you do before you put cuffs on him?
- Security staff told police he was pretending to sleep. What should a proper handover have included, and who should have given it?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: probable. Both documents read are INQUEST publications, so the two-publisher test is not met.
Three police officers were served with gross misconduct notices and the Independent Office for Police Conduct investigated. The Crown Prosecution Service declined charges in 2020, and a Victim’s Right to Review was refused, as INQUEST’s release records. The coroner was making Prevention of Future Deaths reports to Suffolk Police and to Pontins.
The medical cause named the prone position and compression to the neck, and carried a body-size descriptor that is not repeated here.
Our physical interventions training covers the holds in this case, and the monitoring that has to go with them.
Sources
- INQUEST, Paul Reynolds inquest closes, 7 May 2021
- INQUEST, Jason Lennon conclusions, 11 February 2022
Reviewed 20 October 2026.