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An Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation concluded Northumbria Police officers should not be held responsible for the death of man who had been in custody.

Darren Lyons (aka O'Connor), 19, died on 7 July 2010 in South Tyneside General Hospital. Mr Lyons had been taken to hospital from South Shields Police Station where he had been in detention.

The IPCC conducted an independent investigation into Mr Lyons' death which concluded in April 2011, but the full findings could not be disclosed until an inquest had been held. The inquest concluded with a verdict of misadventure.

The IPCC investigation determined Mr Lyons had been stopped by police officers in King Street, South Shields at around 11.15pm on 6 July. The officers were dealing with a group of people following a report of a man kicking the shutters of a shop. Mr Lyons was identified by the officers as having bail conditions excluding him from an area of South Shields. However the officers could not establish over the radio whether Mr Lyons was in breach of his conditions by being in King Street.

The officers transported Mr Lyons to South Shields Police station. Although not under arrest at that stage he was placed in handcuffs. On arrival at the police station the officers established that Mr Lyons was in breach of his bail conditions and he was arrested and detained.

Mr Lyons had been in a road traffic incident in 2007 in which he received serious injuries resulting in him needing a tracheostomy – a tube in his throat to facilitate his breathing. The officers knew from previous dealings with Mr Lyons that he had a history of removing this tube which would result in his breathing gradually deteriorating.

As a result Mr Lyons was placed in a cell covered by CCTV and an officer was stationed in the cell to provide additional supervision.

However within minutes of being put under this supervision, Mr Lyons removed the tube from his throat. The officers immediately called for an ambulance and pleaded with Mr Lyons to reinstate the tube. He did not, and the attending paramedics were not trained to reinstate the tube.

Mr Lyons was taken to hospital but he went into cardiac arrest and died.

The IPCC investigation concluded the officers acted appropriately in placing Mr Lyons under supervision and requesting urgent medical assistance once he removed the tube.

The investigation did identify a learning point for the force about improving accessibility to bail information for officers. The reason for this was that the officers had to transport Mr Lyons to a police station because they could not verify the bail information over the radio. If the information had been readily accessible the officers could have arrested Mr Lyons immediately.

IPCC Commissioner Cindy Butts said: "Our investigation concluded the officers who dealt with Mr Lyons could not be held responsible for his death. They had placed Mr Lyons under constant supervision, but this did not prevent him removing the tube from his throat. It would have been unwise for the officers to have tried to reinstate the tube themselves and they quite rightly sought urgent medical assistance. He was receiving medical treatment at the hospital within 29 minutes of the incident beginning. Tragically he could not be saved and my sympathies go out to his family for their loss. I hope our investigation and the inquest has given them some clarity as to what happened that night.”