Highly-praised sergeant accused of perverting justice

SERIOUS concerns over safety in Camden’s police cells have been raised after the borough’s most decorated officer learned he would be charged with covering up the death of a man at Holborn police station.
Sergeant Matthew Walters, 35, who last year won three assistant commissioner’s commendations – more than any other officer in Camden – is accused of perverting the course of justice and forgery following the death of 47-year-old Italian Enzo Stompanato in December 2002.
A second officer, Constable Simon Jefferson, 27, faces charges of manslaughter by gross negligence, perverting the course of justice and forgery.
Both have been summoned to appear at Bow Street Magaistrates’ Court on September 26 after a two-and-a-half year investigation into Mr Stompanato’s death. They have been removed from front-line policing but will carry on in desk jobs until the case is completed.
Mr Stompanato was arrested for being drunk and disorderly on December 15, 2002, in Euston Road after refusing assistance from an ambulance crew. Less than an hour-and-a-half later he was found dead on the floor of a Holborn cell. A toxicology report concluded he died from a heroin overdose.
The charges came as campaigners urged extra help for police in dealing with the huge numbers of detainees in Camden who are drunk, mentally ill or high on drugs.
Mick Farrant, chairman of Camden Independent Custody Visitors, a panel of unpaid volunteers with powers to check on the welfare of detainees, said: “From all our visits we estimate about 30 per cent of those arrested in Camden are either drunk, have mental health issues or are out of their heads on drugs, or all three. The officers we speak to estimate it is nearer 50 per cent.
“There are 15,000 people arrested in Camden every year and, if anything, I am amazed there are not more people dying in custody, given the state so many of them are in.
“It is a testament to the hard work the police custody staff do that that is not the case.”
A series of alarming incidents in Camden cells in recent months have included the near-death of drugs mule Anthony Johnson, 37, of an overdose at Holborn police station last May.
An independent custody visitor found him on the floor of a cell and demanded he receive immediate medical attention.
In another case, police planned to release a mentally ill man from a cell with only seven pence to get him home to Bedford 38 miles away, while a prisoner in a British Transport Police cell in Camden armed himself with shards from a smashed bed and threatened staff.
Commander Alf Hitchcock, in charge of custody across the capital, did not respond to calls from the Journal.