What happened
On 31 July 2017 Merseyside Police officers attended reports of a man who was drunk and smashing up a property in Liverpool. He spoke little English. He was reported to have lunged at the officers. They restrained him, used incapacitant spray, handcuffed him and took him to custody.
At the custody suite he was given aftercare for the spray, including water to wash his eyes. An officer tried to wipe his face. He became aggressive again. He was restrained on his side on the floor for 16 minutes before he became unresponsive. Police called an ambulance and he was taken to hospital, then later returned to custody. He survived.
The outcome
The Independent Office for Police Conduct reviewed the custody CCTV against the officers’ statements. It found that officers had taken care to position the man so that he could breathe while he was restrained, and that medical assistance was sought immediately once he appeared to become unresponsive. It found no indication that any officer had behaved in a way that would justify disciplinary proceedings or had committed a criminal offence.
A second investigation looked at his care after he returned from hospital. It found 23 cell checks that had not been carried out correctly. Custody staff had not been trained in line with the College of Policing Authorised Professional Practice on Detention and Custody, Detainee Care, and the training they had left confusion about when rousing checks were required.
Five detention officers and two sergeants received management action. Merseyside Police adopted the practice in full during the investigation.
What went wrong
The restraint itself was judged well handled. Sixteen minutes on the floor, held on his side in the position the IOPC judged he could breathe in, ended with an unresponsive man and an ambulance on its way.
The failure came afterwards. Twenty-three checks were done wrongly in the hours after a man had been carried out of a custody suite on a stretcher and brought back. That is the window in which the alcohol and the exertion are still in him and the hold is still in his recent history. Staff had been left unsure when a rousing check was required.
What it teaches
Sixteen minutes is long enough for a man to move from shouting to silent. The question during a ground restraint is not whether the person is still resisting. It is whether anyone is watching breathing and colour, whether a safety officer has that as their only job, and whether the hold has a time limit that someone in the room owns.
The second lesson is that surviving a restraint is not the end of the risk. The check that counts is the one where a person looks, speaks and gets an answer.
Questions for the room
- He was held on his side, which is what trainers teach. What still had to be watched during those 16 minutes?
- You are the officer holding him and he stops swearing at you. What do you check, and when?
- Twenty-three checks failed after a restraint the regulator judged well handled. Which part of your system would have caught that?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: probable. Everything here comes from one document, the IOPC investigation summary published on 21 August 2019, covering two investigations under references 2017/090237 and 2018/103871. It was read.
No press account of the incident was located. The man did not engage with the investigation, so the account of the restraint is the officers’ account as the regulator tested it against custody CCTV. The summary gives no date for the end of the second investigation. Nothing here identifies him or any officer, and no officer faced proceedings.
Dynamis trains staff who may have to hold someone on the ground in [vulnerable and volatile persons](/training-solutions/vulnerable-volatile-persons).
Sources
Reviewed 20 October 2026.