Terry Cassidy, 45, of Heenan Close, Barking, died at Queen’s Hospital, Romford, on April 9.
He had collapsed on March 30 in a car park off Ivyhouse Lane, Dagenham, minutes after calling his long-term partner to say he was being followed by a convoy of unmarked police cars.
She and a friend told Newsquest last week they found Mr Cassidy on the ground, surrounded by police, with what looked like finger marks or scratches around his neck.
Police suggested he may have ingested drugs after they approached him.
Senior coroner Graeme Irvine opened an inquest into Mr Cassidy’s death at East London Coroner’s Court on Tuesday (April 22).
He said the death had been referred to him by Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUT), which runs Queen’s Hospital.
The referral said: “When detained by the police, he became unwell. The London Ambulance Service were immediately called. CPR was commenced by the police officers at the scene.”
During CPR, “a number of items were found wedged in his trachea, which had blocked his airway”.
The items were not specified during the brief inquest opening at the Walthamstow courthouse.
Mr Cassidy was rushed to Queen’s and put on a ventilator but died ten days later, on April 9, having never regained consciousness.
After receiving the death referral on April 10, Mr Irvine ordered an investigation, including a post-mortem examination.
Mr Cassidy’s provisional cause of death has now been given as a hypoxic ischemic brain injury – meaning he suffered brain damage after being deprived of oxygen – caused by “suspected choking on foreign body”.
“Given those circumstances, it seems to me that this is a matter in which I must open an inquest,” said Mr Irvine.
An inquest into Terry Cassidy’s death after police contact in Dagenham was opened at East London Coroner’s Court, Walthamstow, on April 22 (Image: LDRS) He declared Mr Cassidy’s family interested persons – a legal status entitling them to scrutinise evidence ahead of the final inquest and question any witnesses called to testify.
He also made the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) – the official police watchdog – an interested person.
The coroner said he would “need to know the chronology of his movements prior to his contact with the police”.
He ordered disclosure of evidence from bodies including the London Ambulance Service, saying he would need formal statements from all crew members who attended, rather than just the service’s contemporaneous electronic records.
“I would like to be able to look at the quality and nature of the paramedic actions with a level of care,” he said.
Listing the final inquest for October, he said: “This is a target date. It seems to me likely that further investigations ongoing and currently may well impact upon the swift hearing of this inquest.”
Newsquest revealed last week that the Metropolitan Police Service referred itself to the IOPC, but it declined to investigate and suggested the Met investigate itself instead.
Mr Cassidy once worked on TV adverts and music videos, but gave up his career after an accident caused severe injuries to both his feet, leaving him permanently disabled.
Originally from Plaistow, he settled down in Barking as a self-employed computer repair man.
His partner of six years described him as “an angel” whose sole brush with the law had been one court appearance for a driving offence – but said that on the day of the incident, he agreed “like an idiot” to hold onto some drugs for a friend.
He telephoned her to say he was a minute away from her flat but believed he was being followed by undercover police.
When he hadn’t arrived about five minutes later, she called him back and the phone was answered by a police officer, who said Mr Cassidy was “rather unwell”.
She rushed down and saw him on the ground in the car park outside her flat, his chest not moving, with “what looked like little thumb or fingerprints” around his neck, which was “very red” and looked bruised.
She also observed an injury to his head.
A second witness described Mr Cassidy’s neck as “red raw with scratches on it”.
The Met said it stopped Mr Cassidy’s car “following concerns around drug use” and it was believed he “ingested something” when they approached him.
The force’s professional standards department was investigating.
