Aberdeen police custody death ‘might have been avoided’

The death of a young man in police custody might have been avoided, a sheriff has ruled.

Warren Fenty, 20, died from a drugs overdose at Kittybrewster Police Station in Aberdeen in 2014.

He had been arrested after discharging himself from Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, against medical advice, and was being held in the station’s custody suite.

The ruling came at the end of Scotland’s longest running fatal accident inquiry.

Derek Pyle, the sheriff principal of Grampian, Highlands and Islands, said that custody officers should have conducted cell checks of Mr Fenty in accordance with the then standard operating procedure.

This was an opportunity which might have led to Mr Fenty’s readmission into hospital which “might have avoided his death”, external, he said in a written ruling.