When someone dies, in any circumstance, their loved ones, family and friends always seek answers. It’s the natural thing to do.
These answers are almost always given, not necessarily always clean cut but enough to give some sort of comfort to those left behind.
So it’s nothing short of a scandal that the relatives and friends of Sheku Bayoh still truly do not know what happened to the father-of-two more than three years after he passed.
The 31-year-old died after being restrained by police officers in a street near his home in Kirkcaldy on May 3 2015 – this after police received reports of a man behaving erratically and brandishing a knife in the street.
But why there has been no fatal accident inquiry or even a commitment to a public inquiry remains completely beyond me.
Let’s get one thing clear: I’m not apportioning blame here. The Lord Advocate met with Sheku’s family and the family’s lawyer Aamer Anwar last week and told them officers will not face criminal charges in relation to the case.
I have no reason to doubt the Crown Office when it said it had conducted its investigation with “professionalism, integrity and respect”.
Nor am I saying that no-one should be blamed. Mr Anwar was spot on last week when he suggested the case is riddled with double standards.
If nine civilians restrained a member of the public who died, would he have taken over three years to decide whether or not prosecute? Would the nine civilians have been put in a room together and allowed to speak to each other for up to eight hours? And would the police have waited patiently for 32 days for those nine civilians to give witness statements?
Whatever you think about the case though, no matter how complex it has been or what you think of the protagonists, there is no way anyone with a connection to it should still effectively be left in the dark 41 months on.
It’s clear to many a public inquiry now needs to be held. Rumours and speculation swirling around this case have done nothing more than muddy the waters.
How and why we should be sitting here so long after the event with little to show for it is at best troubling and at worst farcical.
