Sheku Bayoh inquiry must be ‘watershed moment’, say campaigners

Hearings to examine 2015 death in custody in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, come after intense pressure from family

The public inquiry into the death in police custody of Sheku Bayoh, which starts taking evidence this week, must be a watershed moment" with the potential to prompt a wider dialogue about racism in Scotland, campaigners have said.

The hearings begin almost exactly seven years since the father-of-two died after being restrained by officers in Kirkcaldy, Fife, on 3 May 2015, and marks the first major public examination of institutional racism in Scotland since the Black Lives Matter movement galvanised around the murder of George Floyd in 2020.