A FORMER police officer’s claims that a “part of me died” when Sheku Bayoh was killed in her custody have been slammed by his grieving family.

Retired Pc Nicole Short made the comments in a press conference organised by the Scottish Police Federation (SPF), just a fortnight after they successfully ousted Sheku Bayoh Inquiry chairman Lord Braccadale.

Mr Bayoh died on May 3, 2015, from asphyxiation, bound hand and foot under the half-tonne weight of six police officers.

After two years of hearing evidence and nearing a conclusion, the inquiry into his death now faces an uncertain future, after SPF claimed the chairman’s decision to meet with the Bayoh family undermined confidence in the process.

Lord Braccadale’s resignation was met with fury from the family, who have long campaigned for an inquiry, arguing racism and incompetence not only played a part in Mr Bayoh’s death, but in subsequent investigations.

SPF lawyer Peter Watson brandished a knife at Ms Short’s press conference while she argued she feared Mr Bayoh would “finish her off” with such a weapon, despite a knife never having been recovered either from Mr Bayoh or the wider area. 

Ms Short, who took ill-health retirement after the incident, said the “mental scar has been life-changing,” adding that the “race factor being brought into it” had been a cloud over her life.

“There’s a part of me that died that day and just never came back,” she said.

Slamming the comments, Bayoh family lawyer Aamer Anwar said: “There is only one person that died that day and it was a 31-year-old unarmed black man, a father of two boys, suffering mental health crisis due to drugs he took – he died as a result of restraint by up to six officers – with half a tonne weight on top of him - those are the facts.

“The conduct of the SPF, their treatment of the family and their childlike denial of institutional racism [admitted] by successive chief constables, shows why they do not want the public inquiry to finish – it is because they know they are dinosaurs whose time is up.

“The Federation we don’t expect to shut up, but Police Scotland and Crown Office must now end their unholy trinity with them and back the public inquiry, which must be allowed to conclude.”