Statement from solicitor Neil Hudgell, of Hudgell Solicitors, who represents the family of Lewis Skelton.
Lewis’ family welcome the decision of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (“IOPC”) to reinvestigate the death of their much-loved father, son, brother and uncle.
However, the family do not welcome the years-long legal wrangles which have led to this decision, or the begrudging way in which the IOPC has delivered this news.
It is now nearly eight years since Lewis was shot dead by a firearms officer and the IOPC’s predecessor – the IPCC – decided that no officer should face criminal investigation or disciplinary proceedings.
What is not apparent from the IOPC’s public announcement of the re-investigation is that Lewis was a man with a history of poor mental health who officers were told had not threatened any member of the public, but who was shot in the back twice whilst walking away from officers after he had been tasered four times by them.
An Inquest jury found him to have been unlawfully killed after listening to six weeks of evidence; including oral evidence from the firearms officer who shot him in the back and from the other who had tasered him.
Even in the face of that conclusion by the jury after such a long and rigorous inquest – and a decision by the Divisional Court that there was evidence to support that conclusion – the IOPC refused to reopen their investigation until the High Court found that they had not properly applied their own policy.
The IOPC must now do the right thing by Lewis Skelton and his family. There must be a full, fair, fearless and objective reinvestigation of the events which led to Lewis’s death in 2016.
No bereaved family ought to need to go to Court time, and time, and time again, to secure answers and accountability following a death at the hands of armed police. We regret that it took a decision of the High Court in this case for the IOPC to discharge its statutory duties.
Our clients’ confidence in this process has been shattered by their experience. The apparent reluctance by the IOPC to re-open an admittedly flawed investigation in the circumstances of this case is deeply damaging to public confidence.
All steps must be taken now to complete this independent re-investigation with rigour absent in the conclusions of 2017 and 2022.
Until the family have proper answers to all their questions, they cannot find closure and properly grieve for the loss of Lewis.
