Met police sets 2019 date for hearings into death of Sean Rigg in 2008

The family of a man who died in police custody a decade ago will have to wait until at least 2019 to see officers face a disciplinary hearing, the Guardian has learned.

Sean Rigg, 40, died 10 years ago on 21 August after restraint by officers in London. The Metropolitan police has decided five officers will face gross misconduct charges, but not until January 2019 at the earliest. An investigation by the police watchdog found police should face claims including use of excessive force.

The continued delays came despite promises of reform triggered directly by the Rigg case, and the family winning the support of Theresa May while she was home secretary.

Marcia Rigg, the sister of Sean, said she had given up hopes of justice but would continue fighting for answers as to why her brother died.

“I have not been able to grieve properly, I can’t move on. I still have all this pain going on, I’m just trying to find closure,” she said. “I know I am not going to get justice, I just want accountability of some sort.”

The police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), had to use its legal powers to direct the Met police to bring some of the charges. It said the date of the hearing was a matter for the Met.

Two officers, Sgt Paul White and PC Mark Harratt, face disciplinary charges over claims they gave misleading evidence to an inquest jury and to investigators at the police watchdog.

They and three others face a hearing over their actions on the day. The other three officers are PC Richard Glasson, PC Matthew Forward and PC Andrew Birks, who had to be stopped from retiring from the police and who has retrained as a Church of England minister.

A first investigation by the police watchdog, then called the Independent Police Complaints Commission, found no wrongdoing. Then an inquest jury in 2012 found that police used unsuitable and unnecessary force and their actions had contributed to Rigg’s death. He was held down in a V shape in a prone position for eight minutes.

During the restraint he was placed face down, with his legs bent back, in a caged footwell of a police van. The jury found that Rigg was struggling but not violent and officers failed to spot the deterioration in his health.

The police watchdog then accepted its first inquiry was flawed and started a second one into the death of Rigg, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.

Rigg died at Brixton police station in 2008. Officers were initially called after concerns his behaviour was threatening.

Marcia Rigg said:“I never thought it would take this long, but I knew I would see it through, as long as it takes. It’s unnecessary delay, caused by the very people who I am challenging, the police and the criminal justice system.”

Rigg has organised a short play about her brother’s case and a public meeting on Friday 24 August.

Last year the Crown Prosecution Service decided it would not bring any fresh criminal charges. One officer, Sgt White, has already been acquitted of a perjury charge.

Deborah Coles of Inquest said: “There would have been a coverup if it was not for the persistence of Marcia Rigg and her family, at great personal cost to them, and it’s still going on into an 11th year.

“The delay, denial, and defensiveness surrounding this case has undermined family and public confidence in the mechanisms for holding police to account.”

The IOPC said: “We regret the amount of time it has taken to reach this point.”

They added: “We have been going through a formal process with the Metropolitan police to determine whether disciplinary hearings should be held for the five officers. In March the IOPC directed gross misconduct hearings for five officers and we understand these hearings will now take place in January 2019.”

The Met police did not respond to a request for comment.