An inquest into the death of a Burnham-On-Sea resident in a police cell has concluded that he passed away of natural causes.
An inquest hearing in Taunton on Monday (July 16th) heard that David Fournier D’Albe, 40, from College Street in Burnham-On-Sea, had been found dead in his police cell at Bridgwater Custody Centre in December 2014, two days after he was arrested in Burnham for being drunk and disorderly following a fire.
A post mortem exam, carried out by a forensic pathologist at Musgrove Hospital, found Mr Fournier D’Albe had died from a pulmonary thromboembolism – the sudden blockage of a lung artery due to a blood clot – and not from a blow to the head that he’d received.
The pathologist said a head injury had occurred as a result of a struggle between Police and Mr Fournier D’Albe at the custody centre but this was not reported to paramedics who took him to Musgrove for tests.
Three Police officers were found guilty of misconduct in 2017 following a public hearing into their actions after the 40-year-old’s arrest but no sanctions were imposed on the officers, as Burnham-On-Sea.com reported here. The senior coroner said the cause of Mr Fournier D’Albe’s sudden death was not related to the misconduct proceedings.
The fire service had been called to College Street on December 28th, 2014 to deal with a fire, as pictured here and which we reported here at the time.
Firefighters removed two people from the property, including Mr Fournier D’Albe, and ambulance crews treated them for smoke inhalation.
Crews said he made a number of attempts to get back into the property during the fire and had been verbally aggressive to firefighters and the Police. He also walked into the path of a fire support vehicle and jumped on the bonnet.
Police arrested him, took him to Bridgwater Custody Centre and officers used PAVA spray – an incapacitant similar to pepper spray – to calm him.
The inquest heard he was regularly monitored by health professionals and was declared fit to be detained before he was charged with being drunk and disorderly.
While the forensic pathologist said Mr Fournier D’Albe had a history of alcohol dependency and drug misuse, no alcohol was present in his system at the time of his death.
