Newport roof fall asylum seeker Mustafa Dawood 'wanted better life'

Mustafa Dawood was found under a broken section of plastic roofing

A Sudanese asylum seeker who died after falling through a roof while fleeing immigration officers had moved to the UK for a better life, an inquest heard.

Mustafa Dawood, 23, had been working illegally at a car wash in Newport when it was raided on 30 June, 2018.

Newport Coroner's Court was told Mr Dawood, who had been refused asylum, suffered fatal head injuries.

His mother said he left Sudan because he belonged to a tribe and was being imprisoned by authorities.

A previous hearing had been told Mr Dawood fled a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs, including the Zaghawa tribe.

Giving evidence on Monday, mother Hameda Hamed Shogar Ahmed said her son was detained in Sudan "on many occasions".

'So much killing'

She told the inquest people disappear from her neighbourhood every day and said: "There is so much killing every day."

She said her son told her he wanted "a better safer life" as he he left Sudan but she did not get to say goodbye to him.

He called her in 2015 when he arrived in the UK and said: "Mum I'm safe now," and he moved to Newport in 2017.

She told the court: "My son was not a thief or a murderer, he was just a young person asking for safety."

Senior coroner for Gwent, Caroline Saunders said on 30 June, 2018, immigration officers "undertook visits" to two car washes in Newport and were "acting on intelligence" that foreign nationals were working illegally at the car washes.

The visits took place at Shaftsbury hand car wash and Albany hand car wash, both on Albany Road in Newport.

The court heard Mr Dawood was at the Shaftsbury car wash site - and jurors were shown CCTV of him washing cars when immigration officers arrived.

Mustafa Dawood had been working at Shaftesbury car wash in Albany Street, Newport

He is seen crawling up to the roof as an immigration officer appears below him with his baton drawn.

Other images show Mustafa running along the roof, before kneeling down and looking over the side.

A lorry driver at the scene, who helped immigration officers access the area where they believed Mr Dawood was hiding, said was "completely shaken" by what he saw.

"The lad was on his back like a starfish and there was a lot of blood by his head, I looked up and I could see a hole in the roof," he said.

The coroner described Mr Dawood running away and being "pursued".

"It appears that Mustafa had fallen through the roof," she added. "He is unconscious and appears to have sustained a head injury."

The inquest heard officers carried out CPR and he was taken to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, where a scan showed he had "sustained a fatal head injury". He died in hospital at 14:45.

The inquest, which is due to last a week, continues.