Report of the Inquiry into the circumstances of the Death of Bernard ...

4.5 A governor’s adjudication was opened at Garth prison under the Prison Rules but
adjourned because the police were investigating. The record indicates that Sonny Lodge
pleaded guilty to assaulting Officer Brownley by pushing him backwards.
The contested accounts of what happened: Mr Brownley
4.6 Officer Brownley’s evidence is that he opened the door slightly, asked Mr Lodge
to put the cigarette out, as it was a no smoking area, and said that if he wanted to smoke
they could go outside. He says Mr Lodge swore at him and laughed. Officer Brownley
says he then pushed the door open, and ordered Mr Lodge to put the cigarette out, and
that Mr Lodge responded by turning round and pushing him forcibly backwards, catching
him off balance so that he was thrown into the waiting area and fell against the trellis,
which collapsed. Officer Brownley believes that his thumb was dislocated in the struggle
that followed, not in the fall, but is not certain when it happened.
4.7 In his statements to the police and to the inquiry, and in oral evidence to the
inquest and the inquiry, Officer Brownley firmly denied that he had grabbed, struck, or
assaulted Mr Lodge in any other way, before the control and restraint by the approved
methods. In oral evidence to the inquiry he said that he pushed open the door and Mr
Lodge “launched himself” at him.
The contested accounts of what happened: Mr Lodge
4.8 Ms Gregory, a legal clerk, told the inquiry she was present with Sonny Lodge at
Huyton police station when he was interviewed and charged. This was on Monday 24
August 1998. The police provided the inquiry with computerised records about the case
but no longer had the statements or the tape recording of Sonny Lodge’s interview. Ms
Gregory’s firm no longer had the file. The statements taken by the police from Officer
Brownley and Mr Routledge were with the inquest papers but there was no tape or
transcript of the interview with Sonny Lodge. Ms Gregory said that she no longer recalled
the exact sequence of events but recalled clearly that Mr Lodge adamantly denied
assaulting anyone.
4.9 Governor Halliwell at Garth prison spoke to Mr Lodge on 29 June 1998, two days
after the incident. He wrote to Governor Williams at Risley that Mr Lodge told him the
officer said something to him, he put the cigarette to his mouth, the officer struck him in
the face, then held him by the throat, he could not breathe so he pushed the officer.
Governor Halliwell said that Mr Lodge pleaded guilty at the adjudication because he
25