Telford victim 'may have been killed before hanging'

The inquest into the death of the second black man from the same family to be found hanged in Telford heard new evidence yesterday that he might have been killed before his body was suspended from the rope.

Dr Nathaniel Carey, a Home Office pathologist, said the marks on Jason McGowan's neck were not conclusively made while he was still alive or even unconscious.

He also said it was impossible to rule out that he might have been forcibly hanged – perhaps with a gun to his head to prevent struggling.

Mr McGowan, 20, a newspaper production worker, was found suspended by his belt from railings near a pub only a few minutes' walk from where he had been celebrating New Year's Eve, 2000, with his new wife and some friends.

His death, coming just six months after that of his uncle Errol McGowan, 34, shocked his family as well as the small Shropshire community.

Errol McGowan had also been found hanged. An inquest last year found that he had committed suicide, even though he had repeatedly begged the police for protection from a racist gang.

Yesterday Dr Carey told the inquest at Telford and Wrekin Coroner's Court: "One would expect to see signs of restraint on the body, if someone had been made unconscious, for example, by an arm lock. But, if it is dealt in a skilled manner, loss of consciousness would happen quite quickly.

"In my opinion it remains a possibility that rather than suspending himself, the deceased was suspended by one or more parties – with the deceased either caught unaware or in fear or under threat."

There was no evidence of a struggle found on the body. But Dr Carey, who conducted a second post-mortem examination, said: "You can't assume that because there is no medical evidence to show there has been a struggle that some one has not been forced to do something. If, for instance, someone is pointing a gun at you, the chances are you are going to do what they tell you, and not put up a struggle."

The location of the body – suspended from 5ft railings next to a main road – would be "most unusual" for a suicide, Dr Carey said.

"Typically in cases where someone hangs themselves, the location is indoors, or, if outdoors, it is in a quiet spot such as a wooded area," he said. "There was nothing to suggest Jason might injure himself. It seems to have come totally out of the blue that he killed himself, if he did."

Furthermore, the pathologist disagreed with an another colleague, Dr Richard Shepherd, that death had been caused by vasovagal inhibition due to hanging.

He said it was due to compression of the neck, which would take all of the scenarios raised into account.

But Dr Shepherd insisted during evidence later that there was nothing to suggest third party involvement. "In the absence of any injury or signs of holding or gripping, I would concur there is nothing pathological to suggest events like these," he said.

"It seems extremely unlikely that a very fit male, even under the influence of alcohol, could be restrained and the belt removed from him and for him to be suspended without there being any marks on the body."

Dr Shepherd concluded that Mr McGowan would still have been alive when the marks to his neck were made by the belt. He dismissed a suggested scenario that the young man was killed, dragged to the railings and suspended from them by a third party.

"Whether someone was dead or alive while being moved, I really have great difficulty in accepting that a body, on being transported and placed into a position up against a wall, wouldn't have had some kind of mark on it," he said.