Dylan Garbe-Ashton died in police custody after fall

Dylan Garbe-Ashton had a seizure in police custody last year and hit his head

A 20-year-old man who died in police custody had taken cocaine before being arrested, an inquest heard.

Dylan Garbe-Ashton, from Powys, had a seizure, collapsed and hit his head on the floor after he was taken to Newtown police station in November 2019.

CCTV footage from where he was detained shows him putting something into his mouth shortly before his arrest.

Mr Garbe-Ashton's girlfriend found out she was pregnant a week after his death, the family told the inquest.

The inquest, held in Welshpool, Powys, heard the cause of death was given as a blunt force head injury and cocaine toxicity.

The jury returned a conclusion of death by misadventure.

After he collapsed, Mr Garbe-Ashton, from Llanidloes, was taken to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital where he later died.

The arresting officers told the inquest Mr Garbe-Ashton had not told them he had just swallowed a large quantity of cocaine.

A post-mortem report said he had an "excessive" amount of cocaine in his bloodstream at the time of his death, but officers reported no signs that he had been under the influence of drugs or alcohol when he was arrested for breaching a community order.

Seizure

CCTV footage filmed in the custody suite showed Mr Garbe-Ashton retching and putting his fingers down his throat, before suffering a seizure shortly after midnight on Saturday 23 November.

The inquest heard appropriate medical attention had been given after he fell and hit his head in the custody suite.

Home Office pathologist Dr Richard Jones said he had never seen such a high concentration of cocaine in someone's blood.

Dr Jones told the inquest cocaine toxicity can cause seizures which he believed had caused Mr Garbe-Ashton to fall and hit his head, which in turn caused the bleeding around his brain.

He said in his opinion, the cause of death was a combination of blunt force injury and cocaine toxicity.

But Dr Mike Dixon, an intensive care unit consultant at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, said Mr Garbe-Ashton's injuries were potentially survivable, adding the head injury alone would not explain the speed of Dylan's decline.

Mr Garbe-Ashton became ill while at Newtown Police Station

In a statement, Mr Garbe-Ashton's family said: "Dylan was a loving, warm, kind young man. He was funny, loyal and with a bright future ahead of him. We are so proud of the wonderful young man he grew into.

"We miss him terribly everyday and our lives will never be the same.

"Dylan's girlfriend Natalie found out a week after his death that she was pregnant. Dylan never had an opportunity to know he was going to be a father.

"He leaves behind a huge emptiness for us, his family, his many friends and his beautiful 13-month-old son, who now has to grow up without his father. We miss you Dylan and will love you forever."

After the inquest, Mr Garbe-Ashton's sister Jessamy Ashton said: "We're pleased to a certain extent with the result. We don't feel Dyfed Powys Police did enough to protect Dylan while he was in their custody.

"We feel there is learning to be gained from this and we hope that will be looked at, and we're just devastated to have lost our little brother Dylan."