Fury at court verdict

A family reacted with outrage today over a court ruling on a death in police custody.

There were angry scenes at the High Court after a judge quashed an unlawful killing verdict on Roger Sylvester.

Mr Sylvester, 30, died in January 1999 after being held down by eight police officers for 20 minutes in a psychiatric hospital.

Today Mr Justice Collins said there was no evidence that any of the officers had used excessive force. He said the inquest jury which returned the unlawful killing verdict had been "confused" by the coroner's flawed summing up.

But outside court Mr Sylvester's 70-year-old mother Sheila said: "God is the ultimate judge," referring to the officers who restrained her son.

She said: "I don't know how they sleep. I'm sure they cannot sleep properly for the wicked things done to Roger."

The officers involved in the case brought today's High Court action after insisting they had done nothing wrong. Mr Sylvester, a manic depressive,

was in a drug-induced delirium when he was arrested while naked and banging on the front door of his Tottenham home.

Mr Sylvester collapsed after being restrained in a padded room at St Ann's psychiatric hospital in Tottenham.

Mr Justice Collins criticised a campaign by Mr Sylvester's relatives, some of whom had described the police as murderers and who used the slogan "Justice for Roger". Mr Justice Collins said: "Of course there must be justice for Roger, but there must also be justice for the police officers.

"The law applies equally to them as it does to anyone else. If they use excessive or unreasonable force and death ensues they will be answerable.

"But only if the evidence is sufficient to prove unlawful killing should they be condemned by a jury. Justice requires that this verdict be quashed."

He did not order a fresh inquest, saying he could see "no conceivable reason" why the family should want the matter considered again at vast expense.

"I am entirely satisfied that no jury would be likely to convict any officer of manslaughter," he said.

At the High Court today the family announced through lawyers that they wanted to take no further part in the proceedings.

Mr Sylvester's brother Bernard Renwick said: "What we now have is a single judge re-writing an inquest. This leaves a bitter taste in our mouth. What was the point of an inquest? What was the point of a jury?"

Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, Glen Smyth, said of the officers: "They and their families have had to endure years of wholly unfair public vilification."

He said the present system of inquests needed "fundamental reform" if the public was to retain any confidence in unlawful killing verdicts.