William Cameron, 38, died of a heart attack on the floor of a police cell at Loddon Valley Police Station in Reading, Berkshire, in the early hours of 8 January 2020. Officers believed he was pretending to be unconscious. Nearly seven years on, his sister is still asking why, and her question has become a matter of public concern: what happens to vulnerable people in police custody, and who is accountable when the system fails them?
The coroner’s cause of death was a mix of alcohol, methadone and other drugs. With criminal proceedings now concluded, the BBC can reveal the series of errors that preceded the death of a man described as “vulnerable”.
For Patricia Cameron, the loss is personal. To her, “Willie” was “the best big brother in the world”, protective, dedicated and constantly video calling to share a bad joke. But he carried deep struggles. After the death of their parents as children, the five Cameron siblings were split up, with Patricia and a brother moved to Scotland while William stayed in Reading. According to Patricia, childhood trauma and mental health issues led him to alcohol and substance abuse, and his life became chaotic. He became known to local police and had a criminal history involving theft and anti-social behaviour.
The events of that night are documented in police body-worn camera footage and CCTV. Officers responded to a call from William’s partner after an argument in which each reported an allegation against the other. After 20 minutes of conversation, officers arrested William at 01:47 GMT on suspicion of assault. From that point he began to deteriorate physically. Within minutes his speech was heavily slurred and he appeared to struggle to walk unaided. His partner told arresting officer PC Leon Cunningham that William had taken tablets and had “got a load of prescription tablets that he bought earlier”. That information was never passed on to other officers or the custody healthcare professional.
Footage shows William displayed no signs of movement during the journey to the police station and arrived limp and unconscious at 02:15. A misconduct hearing panel later heard that officers believed he was “feigning unconsciousness as a form of passive resistance”. Custody sergeant Laura Murray, responsible for deciding whether a detainee needed clinical attention, did not challenge this assumption.
Nurse Sean Cregg, the health care professional on duty that night, examined William. He checked pupils, colouring and breathing, but did not check oxygen levels because the oximeter was not working, taking a manual pulse instead. He correctly established that pills found on William were vitamins, not drugs. William was unconscious for the three minutes Cregg examined him, groaning once after a painful muscle squeeze used to evaluate consciousness. When Murray asked if Cregg was “happy”, he replied “yeah”. Guidance issued to Cregg by his employer, Mountain Healthcare, called for detainees who could not walk or talk to be transferred to hospital immediately. At 02:24, officers and Cregg left the cell, leaving William lying on his front, not in the recovery position.
More failures followed. Recordings show Murray knew William was an alcoholic and drug user presenting as unconscious and limp. Police guidance states that if a detainee is drunk to the point they cannot walk or stand unaided, officers should call an ambulance immediately. Murray also did not put William on “rousing checks”, where an intoxicated detainee is woken at least every 30 minutes until they can talk coherently. Instead he was placed on Level One observations, which guidance deems “the minimum acceptable level of observation required for any detainee”. Detention officer Jack Camp checked through the cell door spy hole every 30 minutes; the misconduct hearing established he should have been entering the cell. At a shift handover at 06:48, Murray was recorded saying: “I didn’t bother putting him on rousals because you’d probably have to clobber him over the head with a bat to wake him up.” At 07:04, an officer looking through the spy hole became concerned he could not see William breathing. Emergency services were called, but William was pronounced dead at 08:16.
Accountability has come in fragments. After an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) and the Crown Prosecution Service, Cregg was charged in 2025 with gross negligence manslaughter and breaching a health and safety law. Prosecutors argued his inaction was “not just a bad day at the office”. Medical experts testified that William would have survived if sent to hospital at 02:20, though this was challenged by the defence. Cregg told jurors he thought Cameron was faking it and wished he had done more: “I absolutely accept I should have taken more observations, been more thorough. At that time I truly believed he was OK.” His defence, Selva Ramasamy KC, argued the duty of care was shared with the police custody team. After more than 25 hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Cregg of both charges.
At a gross misconduct hearing in January, Murray, Cunningham and Camp were found to have breached standards of professional behaviour. The IOPC said Murray wrongly authorised Cameron’s detention and failed to ensure checks were carried out properly to reassess him or request medical assistance when he had not been roused for four hours, demonstrating “a level of complacency, carelessness and a lack of seriousness” while seeking to blame others without “acknowledging her own shortcomings”. Cunningham failed to recognise Cameron needed urgent medical attention or take him straight to hospital when he presented as unresponsive, and did not ask whether he had taken drugs or accurately pass on information. Murray was dismissed without notice; Cunningham and Camp would have been dismissed had they still been serving. All three are barred from working in policing again.
Thames Valley Police’s Assistant Chief Constable Darren O’Callaghan said: “I am truly sorry [William] died in such circumstances. What happened to Mr Cameron was not right and it is very clear that he was not treated with the care or respect he should have from those entrusted with his welfare.”
The death was not the first at Loddon Valley. Leroy “Junior” Medford died after taking heroin in his cell in 2017, and his inquest heard two officers were required to observe him constantly but were unaware this meant one should be within the cell. Coroner Heidi Connor raised concerns about police training and called for a national review, and in 2022 expressed further concern that “the issues raised around training… have been insufficiently addressed”. Thames Valley Police said it now has “additional safeguards” for those coming into custody and “enhanced scenario training” around deteriorating health and the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Patricia Cameron is determined that her brother will not be someone who “passed away in police custody and be forgotten about”. In October she joined other families affected by deaths in custody at a United Family and Friends Campaign procession in London, delivering a letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham calling for greater accountability from public authorities. Downing Street did not respond to a BBC enquiry about the letter. “What frightens me most is that, meanwhile, another vulnerable person like Willie may not be kept safe in police custody,” she said. “Just because he had these issues and this trauma that affected him for his entire life, that doesn’t mean that his life wasn’t important.”