A drug dealer who died after swallowing a packet of cocaine during a police raid had been shouted at up to 30 times to spit it out, a fatal accident inquiry has been told.
Stuart Sandeman was seen popping a "fairly large" bag of white powder into his mouth and chewing as officers urged him not to swallow the Class A drug.
The inquiry at Perth Sheriff Court was told that Sandeman, a convicted cocaine dealer, was pronounced dead within 45 minutes of the police raid starting at his hom on May 6 2011.
Detective Constable Gillian Donnelly told the inquiry: "I've obviously thought about it since the incident happened and I don't think there's anything we could have done differently."
She said she had gone to cover the rear of the flat in Struan Road, Perth, as colleagues used a battering ram to smash down the front door and gain access to Sandeman's home.
DC Donnelly said she was climbing in through the window when she saw Sandeman in the kitchen, appearing to pop a package of drugs into his mouth.
"When I'm climbing in the window I'm shouting 'it's the police' and to open the door. When he places the package into his mouth I'm saying to spit it out.
"I tried to grab his hands and restrain him. However, due to his size and weight he continued walking away from me. The item I had seen to be put in his mouth I believed to be controlled drugs.
"For anybody to put controlled drugs into their mouth is going to cause a safety issue to them. If they swallow them and they burst inside the person that is going to be a danger to them."
The inquiry, which before Sheriff Fiona Tait continues.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article