What happened
Shortly before 1.45am on Saturday 22 July 2017, Rashan Charles, 20 and a father, was restrained by Metropolitan Police officers in a shop on Kingsland Road in Dalston, east London.
The officer who first restrained him, known in the proceedings as BX47, had seen him get out of a car that was acting strangely and chased him on foot. He had no intelligence about Charles or the others. CCTV showed the officer following him in and immediately trying to restrain him, and Charles was quickly taken to the floor.
A bystander, Witness 1, helped handcuff him as he thrashed on the floor saying nothing. Body camera footage showed Charles grasping towards his face before his arm was taken back and cuffed. The officer turned him on his side and told him to spit it out.
The outcome
The inquest at St Pancras Coroner’s Court concluded on 20 June 2018. The jury found the death accidental and the officer’s use of force justified, because Charles resisted.
It found that he did not follow the prescribed protocol for when someone is not breathing and is suspected of swallowing drugs, that he failed to manage the bystander, and that he did not call an ambulance using the override button. The police medic and the paramedics did not contribute.
The coroner had declined to leave neglect or unlawful killing to the jury. A Prevention of Future Deaths report, 2018-0210, followed on 29 June 2018. The family did not accept the conclusion.
What went wrong
One witness said: “When the cuffs had gone on I saw Rashan’s face and I thought, he’s in trouble.” Dr Jasmeet Soar believed purposeful movement stopped about then, and noted that deterioration in breathing is gradual rather than sudden.
The officer said he used a pressure point at the jaw, told Charles to breathe, then turned him over and used an abdominal thrust. Asked why he had not called an ambulance as soon as he was concerned, he said: “Purely because of everything going on.”
The package analysed afterwards was caffeine and paracetamol. Police witnesses said a mouth search is “nigh on impossible” single-handed and should be done in a group with a safety officer watching the breathing.
What it teaches
This is a case to teach as contested, not settled. The jury accepted the force and rejected the aftermath: a restraint judged justified, then a failure to treat a man who was not breathing as a medical emergency. A trainer has to hold both halves at once, and explain why the family still disputes the conclusion.
The usable lesson is narrow. Once a person is handcuffed and has gone quiet, the question stops being about resistance and becomes about breathing.
Questions for the room
- He was told to spit it out and told to breathe. Who was watching whether he was breathing?
- You are the officer with a handcuffed man who has gone quiet. What do you do before anything else, and who do you tell?
- The Met suspended mouth searches after this death. What does a moratorium on a tactic tell you about the tactic?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: confirmed. INQUEST’s account of the conclusion and Guardian reporting from the inquest were read and agree on the sequence and the timings.
The record’s proceedings source is the coroner’s Regulation 28 report, 2018-0210. It was not opened; the findings are as the two news sources report them.
The conclusion is contested by the family and is presented that way here. The IOPC investigated; the sources held record no misconduct outcome, and no officer is named.
Dynamis trains staff who work with people in crisis in [vulnerable and volatile persons](/training-solutions/vulnerable-volatile-persons).
Sources
- INQUEST, 20 June 2018
- The Guardian, 4 June 2018
- Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, 29 June 2018 (not read)
Reviewed 20 October 2026.