Police officers have told how they tried to dislodge the drugs in a woman’s throat before she choked on them on moments later.

Brighton PC Elaine Welsh wanted 36-year-old Kelly Pearson to spit out a wrap she had put in her mouth after being approached by police.

She tried to save Miss Pearson, of Essex Street, after she choked at the scene but the mother-of-two lost consciousness and later died.

Giving evidence at Miss Pearson’s inquest yesterday, PC Welsh said she would not change anything other than the outcome if the situation happened again.

Plain-clothes police had watched what they thought was a drugs deal between Miss Pearson and a man in Lavender Street, Kemp Town, shortly before 5pm on February 17.

They detained the man and PC Welsh, called to the scene by PCSOs, approached Miss Pearson, believing she had drugs in her mouth.

PC Welsh told the inquest at Brighton County Court: “I took her by the arm and I jerked her forward to her knees... with the intent that she would spit it out.

“I was screaming: ‘spit it out’.”

She described how Miss Pearson got up and walked towards a wall before putting two fingers down her throat as if to try and dislodge the packet as she started to choke.

PC Welsh and a PCSO gave her abdominal thrusts and back slaps to try and stop her choking. They called paramedics who removed the blockage, but Miss Pearson died two days later in hospital with severe brain damage caused by lack of oxygen.

The mother-of-two was dependent on heroin and alcohol, the court heard, and wraps of crack cocaine were found in her stomach.

PC Welsh said jerking someone to the ground from behind, as she had done to Miss Pearson, was a recognised restraint technique.

At the time of the incident police were trying to disrupt gangs flooding the area with drugs.

A pathologist told the court that morphine, diazepam and alcohol, found in Miss Pearson’s blood, may have depressed her gagging reflexes.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating the death.

IPCC investigator Carol Dowling said she had not found anything that should have been done differently.

Jurors deliver their verdict today.