ONE OF the police officers who fatally restrained Sheku Bayoh said that the descriptions of the victim as being “deranged with superhuman power” was just “perception.”

PC Craig Walker claimed that race had no impact on how he and his colleagues treated the 31-year-old who died after being restrained by police officers in Kirkcaldy, Scotland,  in May 2015.

He also told the inquiry he was not aware of any negative stereotypes about black men in the criminal justice system.

“They could be referring to a muscular build. If someone was to say that to me, that would be their judgment” Walker said.

Giving evidence to a public inquiry into his death in Edinburgh chaired by Lord Bracadale PC Walker described how he and colleagues confronted and restrained Bayoh following reports he had attacked vehicles in Hayfield Road while carrying a knife.

Walker said he saw Bayoh chasing his colleague, PC Nicola Short who fell to the ground. He said he then saw Bayoh stamping on her back.

Walker confirmed that CS spray and Pava spray were used while Bayoh was being restrained. He added that his and colleague PC Alan Paton’s sprays did not appear to have any effect on him.

Walker testified that CPR was administered on Bayoh when he and other officers realised he was unconscious.

Angela Grahame QC, the inquiry’s senior counsel, asked Walker about how he, Paton and another officer restrained Bayoh on the pavement. She asked: “At any stage did you lie on Sheku Bayoh?”

Walker replied: “I think as part of having to reach across him, the upper part of my body was on his shoulder.”

He said the 31-year-old was not flat on his front because his left arm remained underneath him.

The restraint began, he said, after he witnessed Bayoh make a “full-force stamp” on another officer, PC Nicole Short.

Walker confirmed that “when we turned up he wasn’t actively in possession of the knife, or brandishing it.”

The officer said he “didn’t make any assumptions” about the role that race played in how he dealt with Bayoh and that the actions he and other officers took were “based on the threat he presented to ourselves and members of the public”.

Bayoh’s family have campaigned for several years for an independent inquiry into the circumstances of his death, which they believe was caused by police techniques that resulted in positional asphyxia. They also claim that police officers reacted too quickly and that the actions they took in dealing with Bayoh were motivated by racism.

The public inquiry, under Lord Bracadale, continues.