The sisters of the man suspected of being the so-called “Putney pusher” have told the BBC their brother was innocent, and accused the Metropolitan Police of being “negligent and reckless”.

Nicholas Brandram’s sisters gave BBC Radio 4’s Today programme a list of reasons why they believed their brother could not have been the jogger who pushed a woman into the path of a bus on Putney Bridge, west London, in May 2017.

Brandram was found dead on Tuesday evening and his family said he “took his own life after months of immense pressure” caused by the Met investigation.

The Met said it recognised the “strain that being subject to a police investigation” could cause, and that a mandatory referral had been made to the police watchdog.

Brandram’s sisters Alexia Hicks and Sophie Voelcker told Today presenter Justin Webb their brother’s mental health had been deteriorating in recent months and that “every day was becoming difficult” while he was under police scrutiny.

They said it was “ridiculous” their brother – a banker and former army officer – was the suspect because:

“It’s out there on the internet what the so-called Putney pusher looked like. We provided evidence very quickly to show that this did not look like our brother,” the sisters said.

“Nine and a half years ago when the incident occurred, there’d been absolutely nothing connecting our brother to the attack.

“So this came completely out of the blue, off effectively an allegation which must have been either malicious or mistaken.”

Describing Brandram’s “hostile” arrest in June, Hicks said: “My brother woke up to a large handful of police officers wearing armed vests and with a film crew on the doorstep from the media.”

The sisters said his mental health had been “deteriorating” following the arrest.

“His name was leaked on social media channels within a couple of days. And that’s when the vitriol started online. Thanks to the leak,” they said.

“He was reading everything that was online. Because he was still guilty online.”

Brandram’s sisters said: “The Met, they were negligent, they were reckless and they have, you know, failed our brother.

“They failed in their duty of care to our brother, to the wider family and arguably actually society because the Putney pusher is still out there.”

The sisters said it seemed as though the Met had an “urgency” to arrest him and tell the press.

“He couldn’t understand why there wasn’t an urgency to help clear his name,” they said.

Describing Brandram as a “very, very, very loved brother and uncle, father, son”, the sisters said he was a “real family man” and “didn’t deserve any of this happening to him”.

The force said the investigation into the 2017 incident remained ongoing.

It added that it had no further comment to make in relation to the sisters’ comments.

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