Jurors in the inquest of Amarnih Lewis-Daniel yesterday (November 22) watched police bodycam footage of her mother’s interaction with PC Jack Freeman on the morning of March 17, 2021.
She told PC Freeman that her daughter had mental health diagnoses, had made repeated attempts on her own life and might currently be self-harming.
She said her daughter was “like a maniac” and she feared Amarnih would one day kill her.
But PC Freeman did not raise any mental health safeguarding concerns, he told East London Coroner’s Court, in Walthamstow.
Amarnih, 24, was found dead in the car park outside her home at Highview House, Chadwell Heath, hours later.
Jurors have been told that she was a transgender woman, having identified as female from a very young age and legally changed her name.
She is being referred to by female pronouns in court at her mother Angela Lewis-Campbell’s request.
But in PC Freeman’s body-worn camera footage from the day of Amarnih’s death, Mrs Lewis-Campbell referred to Amarnih using male pronouns.
“I think he could kill me,” she warned. “I can’t live like this. I can’t. I can’t sleep. I sleep downstairs on the sofa with one eye open. I can’t do this anymore.”
Mrs Lewis-Campbell had called police after finding Amarnih sitting in her garden that morning, the court heard.
It was the second time in nine days that Amarnih had shown up at her mother’s home uninvited and refused to leave, jurors were told.
The previous time, on March 6, she assaulted officers and a kitchen knife was later found in the room where she had been arrested.
Jurors have already heard evidence from Mrs Lewis-Campbell about how Amarnih, after years of transphobic abuse, went into “a downward spiral”, becoming reclusive, paranoid and aggressive.
PC Freeman testified that Amarnih left the property without incident on March 17, 2021.
But footage of his interview with Mrs Lewis-Campbell afterwards captured her serious concerns about Amarnih’s mental state.
“He said twice, a few weeks ago, ‘You know, I could actually kill someone’,” she told PC Freeman.
On one recent occasion, Mrs Lewis-Campbell added, Amarnih had told her, “I’m going to f*** you up.”
“He’s resentful,” she told the officer. “He hates me because he’s a boy. Hates me because of the name I gave him.”
She told PC Freeman: “He’s been done for affray… He’s kicked and stamped on a man’s head until he was unconscious. He’s a killer. He’s like a maniac.”
The court heard she said Amarnih had once drowned a pet gerbil.
Jurors have heard evidence that Amarnih had diagnoses of anxiety, depression, traits of emotionally unstable personality disorder, was awaiting an autism assessment and had received anger management counselling.
Mrs Lewis-Campbell told PC Freeman in the footage that Amarnih had multiple mental health problems and had repeatedly attempted suicide.
“I think he self-harms,” she added.
She mentioned an incident weeks earlier, on January 29, when Amarnih had been arrested for smashing the windows in her flat and throwing household items out of them.
“He’s in a flat and I don’t think he should be,” said Mrs Lewis-Campbell. “He threatened to jump out of the window.”
The court heard she said Amarnih had become “paranoid” about security staff at Highview House, who she believed had been ridiculing her because she was trans.
PC Freeman testified that he did not recall being given any information by colleagues about the January 29 incident.
He added that he had not interpreted Mrs Lewis-Campbell’s comment about jumping out the window as being about self-harm, as he didn’t know Amarnih lived on the seventh floor.
He said he had thought it referred to “an attempt to evade arrest”.
“It’s very common for people to try and evade arrest and going through windows is extremely common,” he said.
Asked whether he would have created a police safeguarding report, known as a MERLIN, if he had known that Amarnih’s behaviour that day was part of a pattern, prompting repeated police call-outs within weeks, PC Freeman said no.
“We would have applied it to what we saw that day,” he testified. “We wouldn’t put a MERLIN on for what another officer saw a couple of months ago.
“The officers that dealt with it in January on March 6 would have made their assessment… I wasn’t there.”
The inquest continues.
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