Family tribute to 'kind' Llanidloes man after custody death

Dylan Robert Garbe-Ashton, from Llanidloes, fell ill in the custody suite and had a seizure and collapsed, banging his head on the floor and went into cardiac arrest just after midnight on November 23, 2019.

He died at around 1.30pm at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital with his partner and family by his side.

He had been seen appearing to swallow an object before his arrest, and died with an 'unintentional rupture' of five grams of cocaine in his stomach, which left him with a low chance of survival.

In a statement, Mr Garbe-Ashton’s family said: “Dylan was a loving, warm, kind young man. He was funny, loyal and with a bright future ahead of him. We are so proud of the wonderful young man he grew into.

“We miss him terribly every day and our lives will never be the same.

“Dylan’s girlfriend Natalie found out a week after his death that she was pregnant. Dylan never had an opportunity to know he was going to be a father.

“He leaves behind a huge emptiness for us his family, his many friends and his beautiful 13-month-old son, who now has to grow up without his father.

“We miss you, Dylan, and will love you forever.”

A two-day jury inquest at Welshpool Town Hall was shown CCTV footage of a Mr Garbe-Ashton appearing to swallow an object at a petrol station in Newtown at around 11.40pm, moments before police officers approached him about a warrant for his arrest for breaching a community order.

Newtown Police Station

Police constable Elin Green told the inquest that Mr Garbe-Ashton appeared “calm and co-operative” and did not tell her that he had swallowed a large amount of cocaine.

When he began to retch and place his head and hands on the custody sergeant’s desk at the police station, PC Green asked if he was okay. He replied that he was.

Arresting officer PC Peter Richards said: “He started to put his fingers down his throat. He didn’t say why. It didn’t concern me because people do strange things in the custody suite. Afterwards he became agitated then settled down again.”

Three minutes and 43 seconds after arriving at the custody suite, Mr Garbe Ashton’s body became stiff and began to shake before having a seizure and falling to the floor with a “loud bang”.

“I tried to grab him to stop him from falling but he had already fallen by that time. There was nothing about his demeanour that suggested he was about to fit,” PC Richards added.

An emergency button was activated to alert other officers in the building. CPR was administered on Mr Garbe Ashton for around 30 minutes while they waited for paramedics and fire crews to arrive.

The inquest heard medical evidence from Dr Mike Dixon who was the on-call consultant that treated Mr Garbe-Ashton at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

Dr Dixon said Mr Garbe-Ashton was “extremely acidotic” and it was in his view that he was unlikely to survive from the toxic effects of cocaine.

Dr Dixon said that there was less than one per cent chance of surviving the cardiac arrest outside a hospital after Mr Garbe-Ashton fell “very quickly and unexpectedly”.

“His head injury was significant but does not explain why he deteriorated so quickly afterwards.

“Rather than deteriorating over days, it was within hours and minutes.”

Jurors also heard from Dr Richard Jones, a forensic pathologist who found that Mr Garbe-Ashton had a suffered a skull fracture consistent with a moving head injury. He said had been an unintentional rupture of five grams of cocaine in his stomach. A toxicology report of Mr Garbe-Ashton’s blood level was “the highest he had ever seen”.

“Ultimately, it is the cocaine toxicity that has started the chain of events and culminated with subarachnoid haemorrhage which was caused by the trauma at the back of the head,” he said.

The medical cause of death was ruled as a blunt force head injury and cocaine toxicity. Jurors also ruled that appropriate medical attention was administered by the emergency services.