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Post by rugbytoffee on Sept 14, 2022 17:28:20 GMT
A jury trying a Pc accused of assaulting Dalian Atkinson has been told the retired footballer was looking forward to private health treatment due to start on the day he was unlawfully killed.
The second day of a re-trial of Pc Mary Ellen Bettley-Smith was told Mr Atkinson’s mental state became disturbed – probably due to a build-up of toxins linked to renal failure – in the hours before he was tasered and kicked in the head by Pc Benjamin Monk.
Monk was convicted of manslaughter last year by a jury which was unable to reach a verdict on an assault charge faced by his 32-year-old West Mercia Police colleague Bettley-Smith.
Prosecutors allege Bettley-Smith "lashed out" several times with a baton at Mr Atkinson, causing actual bodily harm which did not contribute to the former Aston Villa, Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich Town’s star’s death in the early hours of Monday 15 August 2016. Giving evidence to jurors at Birmingham Crown Court on Wednesday, Mr Atkinson’s partner Karen Wright said she had been due to drive him to a clinic in Cheshire for an afternoon appointment on August 15.
Referring to her late partner, who she knew for 27 years, as "Dee", Ms Wright told the jury he left a friend’s house in the early hours to travel to his father’s home in Meadow Close, Telford, Shropshire.
She told the court she spoke by telephone with Mr Atkinson after he had arrived in Meadow Close, where he was tasered three times, before being taken to hospital.
Describing her partner, who was being treated for kidney failure and heart problems, as "always a gentle, loving, lovely man," she said: "He was very conscious of his health. He was jogging again in February 2016 so he was getting fit.
"Dee had a hospital appointment on that Monday. He was elated. He was very happy about that." On the evening of Sunday 14 August, Ms Wright said, Mr Atkinson mentioned "the messiah" and pulled out a dialysis line which had left him in constant pain.
She and a friend had tried to prevent Mr Atkinson leaving the house, Ms Wright said, but he took the keys to her car and drove away at around 1am despite pleas not to go.
During a call to Mr Atkinson’s mobile Ms Wright made at around 1.30am, the retired footballer said he was at his father’s house and she heard voices she did not recognise in the background.
A statement from Mr Atkinson’s brother Paul was also read to the jury on Wednesday.
The 48-year-old’s sibling said: "The last time I saw Dalian was Sunday August 14 2016 around 11pm, when I gave him a lift home from my house.
"He was in a good mood because he was finally going to receive private medical treatment."
Paul Atkinson also stated his brother later briefly visited his home some time after midnight.
"I heard a knock at the door and someone calling my name," he stated. "I heard Dalian saying: ‘You are plotting against the wrong person, I am the messiah.’ I then heard the front gate close.”
Bettley-Smith denies assault, claiming she acted lawfully in Meadow Close while trying to protect others.
The trial continues.
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Post by rugbytoffee on Sept 15, 2022 18:02:19 GMT
An eyewitness has told a trial that a police officer accused of assaulting Dalian Atkinson struck the retired football star up to three times with a baton after he had fallen to the ground.
The retrial of West Mercia Police constable Mary Ellen Bettley-Smith has heard claims she lashed out at the former Aston Villa player when he posed no threat. Her colleague, Benjamin Monk, was convicted of manslaughter last year, after tasering and then twice kicking Mr Atkinson in the head before his death in the early hours of 15 August, 2016. Bettley-Smith, 32, denies assault, claiming she acted lawfully in defence of others when she delivered baton strikes to Mr Atkinson near his father’s home in Meadow Close, Trench, Telford, Shropshire.
Mr Atkinson, whose career also included spells at Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich Town, is believed to have been in a disturbed mental state at the time of the incident, probably due to a build-up of toxins caused by kidney failure. What did the eyewitness tell the court? Giving evidence from the witness box on the third day of Bettley-Smith’s retrial at Birmingham Crown Court, Meadow Close resident Victor Swinburne said he had looked out of his window after hearing “authoritative” voices instructing someone to sit down and stay where they were.
He told the court: “I heard a crackling noise and assumed that it did sound like a taser.
“The gentleman said ‘10,000 volts is nothing to me’ or something to that effect, swept his arm across his chest – I would think to remove the electrodes.”
After hearing glass smashing twice, Mr Swinburne saw officers “reversing” away from Mr Atkinson, who was making comments in which he claimed to be “the messiah” and said he could see the police were scared.
The witness, who said Mr Atkinson had appeared “arrogant, not necessarily aggressive”, added: “He was tasered again and he went down… as if somebody has passed out.
“He sort of literally went down on his right shoulder. He went rigid but I think there was probably minor movements as if you have had an electric shock.”
The two officers were shouting for the man to put his hands behind his back, Mr Swinburne said.
Did Dalian Atkinson move after he fell? The witness added: “As soon as he went down, the male officer went in first and gave him some kicks to the torso, and then the female officer afterwards went in. And she shielded my view of the gentleman.
“However I could see she struck the baton two or three times.
“I never saw him move once he had fallen.”
Asked to tell the jury where the female officer was standing in relation to the male Pc, Mr Swinburne added: “Just behind him. He was on the left, she was on the right.
“She had a truncheon in her right hand. She struck him two, possibly three times. I wouldn’t know whereabouts because my view was restricted – I was looking at her back and then somebody in front of her on the ground.”
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Post by rugbytoffee on Sept 28, 2022 14:43:55 GMT
PC Mary Ellen Bettley-Smith has been cleared at Birmingham Crown Court of assaulting retired Aston Villa footballer Dalian Atkinson prior to his death in Telford, Shropshire, in 2016.
Jurors deliberated for three hours and two minutes before acquitting Ms Bettley-Smith, who struck Mr Atkinson three times with a baton after he was tasered to the ground by PC Benjamin Monk, who was jailed last year for manslaughter.
Bettley-Smith told her trial she was left "shaking from head to toe" and was sure she would have come to serious harm if Mr Atkinson had managed to get to his feet.
The 32-year-old told the jury she had used her baton lawfully as a last resort as she desperately tried to control Mr Atkinson, who she said was "actively resisting and trying to get up" at the scene in Meadow Close, Trench.
Following the acquittal, the trial judge John Butterfield KC told the jury: "You leave the court with my real thanks."
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