The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation into the death of Mohamud Mohamed Hassan has made good progress and, given the significant public interest, we are now in a position to provide some further information about what we have been able to establish and independently verify so far. This information has been shared with Mr Hassan’s family and South Wales Police.
This IOPC did not share this with the Hassan family they issued a press release which was sent to the family. Such is their contempt for the Hassan family there was no advance briefing or opportunity to challenge this information. This press release seems to suggest or imply that Mohamud had been the subject of a mysterious attack by persons unknown prior to police arriving at his property.
IOPC Director for Wales, Catrin Evans, said: “We are aware that there is a lot of speculation about the circumstances surrounding Mr Hassan’s death and we now know that some of that is inaccurate. As a public body we have a duty, when we are able, to try to correct misinformation that may be in the public domain.”
if only that were true, instead the IOPC seem intent in pedalling misinformation in an attempt to shape public opinion. They're secrecy, media manipulation through the drip-feeding of selective information is a scandal and continues to deeply alienate the Hassan family.
Having listened to the original emergency call from the evening of Friday 8 January we know that officers attended the flat in Newport Road in response to a caller who said that five men had entered the address and were fighting with the five occupants within the property. The officers’ body-worn video footage shows that on arrival a number of the occupants had injuries, and officers sought explanations about where the injuries came from.
There is no evidence of five men entering the Newport Road property and fighting with five residents. A similar 'emergency call' call was made on a least two further occasions the day after Mohamud's death suggesting that someone was making hoax calls. The above cites "number of occupants'" were injured, we say who was injured and what type of injuries were these? Fresh wounds or old injuries?
From a search of the flat, reviewing footage, officer accounts, pathology information, and an audit trail of Taser use within the South Wales Police force area we requested, there is no evidence to suggest that Mr Hassan was Tasered at any stage either prior to or during his detention.
Speculation as to what happened to Mohamud could have been swiftly addressed had the IOPC released the Police body cam video immediately. We will continue to make our own enquiries.
While not all had direct contact or involvement with Mr Hassan, we are still gathering accounts from a large number of officers and police staff who were on duty at Cardiff Bay police station over two separate shifts and those who were in supervisory positions. We are obtaining detailed accounts from the 11 officers who attended the address on 8 January, ten officers who attended the premises the following evening when Mr Hassan died, and 13 officers and detention officers who were on duty over two shifts at the custody suite. We are gathering accounts from a further 12 officers who have been identified from events linked to the Newport Road address around that time which do not include the arrest or sudden death of Mr Hassan.
Eleven officers attended the address. We assume, therefore that these were the officers involved in the arrest of Mohamud. Why hasn't the IOPC shared these critical 11 police bodycam videos with the family?
Catrin Evans said: “There is much more work to do to complete our investigation and our investigators continue to gather and review evidence to help us establish the events leading up to Mr Hassan’s death. We need to ensure we have spoken to anyone who may possibly have useful information to help us build a picture of what happened.
The IOPC is not a trusted organisation and the fact that they are refusing to let the family and their legal team, independently assess and evaluate the evidence is a damming inditement of this investigation process. The family want to do their own investigation by assessing the evidence themselves,
“We have concentrated on the footage from police body-worn video and from CCTV at the custody suite which covers the time Mr Hassan spent there and his release from the police station. As our review of this material nears completion, we intend to move on to scrutinise street and private footage which has been secured, which we hope will assist in identifying Mr Hassan’s movements following his release from custody, and may open up further lines of enquiry.
What further lines on inquiry? The family continues to demand access to the police bodycam and CCTV footage and the fact that IOPC continues to communicate with the family through a press release and steadfastly refuses to provide access to film footage is evidence of the appalling secrecy and state control that this process inflicts on families.
“An investigation like this does take time and we would ask people to be patient while the investigation runs its course.”
This whole process is deeply flawed. It is not for the IOPC to decide what the Hassan family can and can't see in terms of evidence or when it's appropriate for them to see it, Family liaison through a press release is deeply insulting and the IOPC is treating the family as if they were journalists not victims of a tragedy.
