The Met has apologised to the family of a mentally ill black man from Lewisham who died in custody, as a senior officer involved was cleared of misconduct.

Kevin Clarke, 35, a relapsing paranoid schizophrenic, died in police custody at Lewisham Hospital in 2018 following an incident in the Polsted Road area of Catford.

The force broke regulations by holding misconduct proceedings without telling his family or the police watchdog, BBC Panorama has revealed.

Cdr Bas Javid apologised and said it had been an administrative error.

In an interview for the BBC's Panorama programme, Cdr Javid admitted that the force still had an issue with "racial discrimination, bias and prejudice".

Mr Clarke had been living at the Jigsaw Project, a residential support service, for about two years up until his death in hospital on March 9 2018.

He had been seen by officers earlier that day, but was not sectioned despite concerns from staff at Jigsaw.

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Mr Clarke was found lying on the ground and attempted to get to his knees before being restrained by up to nine officers. He was handcuffed and legs restraints were applied.

In body-worn camera footage, Mr Clarke could be heard groaning, saying "I can't breathe" and "I'm going to die"..

Restraint expert Eric Baskind told Panorama: "There is absolutely no justification at all for restraining him... he's not being aggressive… he's suffering from a mental health crisis, and what they've done is just totally wrong and dangerous."

A damning inquest jury concluded that the decision to use restraints on Mr Clarke was "inappropriate".

The jury said the use of restraints "probably more than minimally or trivially" contributed to his death, adding it was inappropriate as it was not considered in view of the risk to the police and the public.

Mr Clarke's sister Tellecia Strachan said: "A lot of [the officers] have said that they wouldn't change their actions if they were to do it again… and to me, that's like no lessons have been learned."

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) instructed the Met to hold a misconduct meeting over the way the senior officer at the scene handled Mr Clarke's restraint.

But the Met failed to tell either the IOPC or Mr Clarke's family the date of the hearing, at which the officer was cleared.

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Cyrilia Davies Knight, solicitor to the Clarke family, said it had been "truly shocking" the process had been allowed to go ahead without the family.

"I think [they] might have been able to understand or stomach it a bit more had the outcome been different but here we have an officer having her conduct reviewed without the disciplinary body who brought her there in the first place and without the family who have an interest - and the outcome is there was no case to answer," she said.

The IOPC now wants the Met to hold the process again.

A spokesperson for the police watchdog said: "The IOPC has taken the unusual step of challenging the misconduct meeting as the Metropolitan Police Service failed to notify us or Mr Clarke's family of the date of the hearing, so neither we nor the family were able to attend as the regulations provide for.

"The regulations exist to ensure the system is transparent and fair, and failure to follow them deprived the deceased's family of their right to be able to ask questions at the hearing and for the IOPC to make representations."

Mr Javid said the family had been called by a senior officer and an apology was offered. He added that there had been an "administrative error", and said there was "nothing in what I've seen" to suggest "there was any attempt" to exclude the IOPC or the family.