A BEREAVED daughter has paid a moving tribute to her “kind and caring” dad at in inquest into his death after he was restrained by doormen at a nightclub.
Stewart Anderson, 54, died from a mixture of drugs, alcohol, heart disease and the stress of being restrained after he and his friends were thrown out of the Loveshack nightclub, Crook Coroner’s Court has heard.
The 54-year-old ceramic tiler of Hetton-le-Hole was pinned down for about six minutes outside the Walkergate club after punching two bouncers.
His daughter, Kay Allcroft who attended the inquest hearing alongside her sister Kelly Beston, told a jury she wanted to give them a true representation of her father.
Speaking tearfully she said: “He was a very popular man and had many friends. I know they all described him as extremely hard working, honest and loyal.
“He was a brilliant dad and an amazing grandad.”
She said, the day before his death he had contacted her and said he wanted to take her family for a Sunday lunch - a regular occurrence since her daughter Neve’s birth,
She said: “It demonstrates how caring and thoughtful he was. It breaks my heart to know how much he had been looking forward to that day.
“My dad really was so kind and caring and this is the man that will be missed by his family.”
Earlier, PC Dawn Lee described how she and PC Amy Nicholson had responded to a call from CCTV operators of a disturbance at the club, at about 1am on July 24, 2016.
They arrived to see bouncers “holding two violent males down and restraining them”.
Mr Anderson appeared to be on lying on his front, facing the ground.
PC Lee said: “One of them said he had been assaulted and that’s when I made the decision the male was still violent and I was going to arrest him.
“I asked one of them to put his (Mr Anderson’s) hands behind his back so I could handcuff him. “I handcuffed him and when I rolled him onto his side my immediate thought was that he was dead.
“He had a very blue face, blue ears, blue nose and he had blood coming out of his mouth. My instinct was that he was dead.”
An ambulance was called and defibrillators were used at the scene.
Mr Anderson was taken to the University Hospital of North Durham, where he was pronounced dead at 8am.
A post mortem examination found Mr Anderson had cocaine, ecstasy and alcohol in his blood. The jury will retire today.
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