Revenge not justice The life sentences meted out in the Broadwater Farm trials are a turning so-called judges rules' on the questioning of were held incommunicado for days at a time; and were threatened, beaten and tricked into signing 'confessions' incriminating others. Much of this police abuse of human rights was effectively legalised by the police and Criminal Evidence Bill. It has been revealed in court that the police consistently broke the suspects and the Children and Young Per- • Almost the entire basis of the police 'case against those charged (other than photo- graphs taken on the night) is confessional, obtained under duress and while the accused sons Act in their treatment of juveniles. point in black politics in Britain, argues JOHN GREGORY. Broadwater Farm trials BROADWATER FAR M court after a judge agreed that he had been Sergeant. The Metropolitan police has taken no action against him what- • The catalogue of large-scale raids, arrests and brutal interrogations carried out by the 'the entire police case rested on the "confessions' of the defendants' tortured by attempt to protest against police abuses of Over the past 18 months, a number of THE LIFE CONVICTIONS of Winston Silcott, Mark Braithwaite and Engin Raghip for the murder of Pc Blakelock during the Broad- water Farm (BWF) uprising mark a new stage of the relationship between the state and black people in Britain. The message behind your human and democratic rights and you black people have been either killed or the veritable police-judicial-media 'conspira- cy' against the Blakelock defendants is clear: Cynthia Jarrett, Cherry Groce, Antony Le- mard, Clinton McCurbin, Trevor Monervil- le. Not a single policeman has been convicted of any offence. In fact DC Randall, who led the raid on Mrs Jarrett's home during which she died has since been promoted. This contrasts starkly with the treatment of defen- dants in the BWF trial. It exposes the dual standard intrinsic to British justice: the ease with which inspector Lovelock who shot and paralysed Cherry Groce was found 'not guil- ty" of maliciously wounding her at his trial and the treatment meted out to the Blakelock seriously injured at the hands of the police — will pay the heaviest penalty.
The repressive extra-legal nature of the police investigation and the legal process which culminated in the murder trials has been well documented and exposed by the defendants are two sides of the same coin.
BWF defence committee and the Broadwater Direct parallels with the repression of the nationalist community in the north of Ireland can be made from the deployment of plastic bullets on the night of the uprising to the stationing of army surplus Saracens at Tottenham police station following the Blakelock ver- BWEYA. Association Youth Farm
Many were threatened with being charged with PC Blakelock's murder and with life imprisonment in order to get them to sign. This use of false confessions is the central pillar of the police case against BWF youth; without it the entire state case collapses. In One youth who signed a 50 page 'confession' conclusively that he was in Windsor on the night of the disturbances! Though some cases have collapsed due to the weaknesses of police evidence the judiciary has allowed the from two to eight years, some for the crime of Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 were held without access to legal advice. several confessions obtained by these me- thods the 'facts' have been proved to be false. had all charges dropped when it was proved So far, on the charges of affray and murder, 37 cases have been tried with 12 acquittals, two retrials, 15 found guilty and eight pleading guilty. Other than those sen- tenced for murder, sentences have ranged Stafford Scott of the Youth Association arrested outside the courtroom 'conveyor belt' to roll on. police during their 'investigation' - 362 "fishing' operation aimed at obtaining names and confessions. Detective chief superinten 161 were subse- dent Melvin, who was responsible for opera- licitors were 'not above taking part in a tions, pursued a deliberate policy of exclud- ing solicitors; he claimed in court that so- Detainees — 50 per cent of them juveniles — conspiracy to pervert the course of justice'. is the conflict between black 'the dynamic at the heart of the Broadwater Farm affair self-organisation and state quently charged - constituted people were arrested and dict. A clear and conscious link has been made publicly by the BWFYA leadership be- tween the British support for the South African regime and its 'apartheid-like' acti- In understanding the origins of the upris- ing and meaning of the convictions the fol- • The Gifford enquiry showed that it was the police refusal to even suspend any of the officers involved in the raid on Mrs Jarrett's tion making its way to the police station. This demonstration was stopped by riot police on the edge of the estate who then sealed it off. It was only then that disturbances ensued. The in any way — not a single piece of evidence or independent eye-witness has been brought forward to support their claims. Attempts to conflict with the low crime figures on the • DC Randall, who led the raid on Mrs Jarrett's house, and DC Sergeant who was rested, were transferred to Tottenham from the notorious Stoke Newington police station in the clearout of eight 'bad apples' following the suspicious death of Colin Roach. It was revealed in court that in March 1986 a man home which led to the peaceful demonstra- police assertion that the uprising was a 'pre- planned" operation has never been sustained portray the estate as a 'nest of thieves' involved in the interrogation of those ar- was awarded £3,500 in damages at county lowing are key pieces of the jigsaw: vities at home. N
Irish agreement over extradition on request Weighed against this are blows to public confidence in the police and courts that The parallels between the conviction of the Broadwater 3 and the cases of the Birmin- gham 6 and Guildford 4 are obvious. Follow- ing the Birmingham and Guildford pub those subsequently convicted were picked out from a community and convicted in trials hyped by the media, on the flimsiest of evidence and confessions ex- tracted under duress. Twelve years later their innocence has been completely establ- ished. The government is now attempting to balance two options. The deal it can get from the Irish government as part of the Anglo- for a police frame up in the first place. and so on, if they are released. bombings, BROADWATER FAR M reasons as racial discrimination fear whipped up by the police blinded the jury to They, like the judges, must have been aware mining the police case against all BWF defen- revealed that he was on bail from another age against a jury 'perverse' enough to find Silcott and the others not guilty when it was The media, of course, had already played a full role in the creation of this climate prior of the consequences of an acquittal in under- dents. Imagine the media orchestrated outr- Following the verdicts, almost the entire national media engaged in an orgy of racism. The single 'fact' that Winston Silcott had to the opening of the Blakelock murder trial. murder charge when Blakelock was killed. any evidence'. police. Not a single piece of forensic evidence or scientific evidence was produced to link any of the defendants with the murder of Blakelock or the uprising in one of the largest police investigations ever in mainland Bri- throwing stones. Thirty six more cases re- main to be heard, including those charged with riot who are to be tried separately. The DPP has learned the lesson of the Bradford 12, Newham 8 and the Orgreave trial on 'collec- tive' trials. This will be the first time that this The police 'evidence' in the actual murder trial was farcical. The main prosecution witness - Jason Cobham, whom the police paid, found two jobs and kept under guard in a rent free flat - told the court that he had been lying all along in his statements to the has occurred in British law.
scarriages of justice' are not the best method of ensuring social order and confidence in the mics, legal figures, journalists, MPs) should were imprisoned that will ensue if they are released. The Broadwater 3 can and should be linked to the Birmingham 6/Guildford 4 cases and the similarities exposed. If they are released then supporters of the Broadwater 3 will have a critical opportunity to unite a wide spectrum of forces to challenge the The use by the police and courts of confes- sions obtained by duress is the key issue around which support could be unified for all A wing of liberal establishment opinion considers such 'mi- 'neutrality' of the police-judical apparatus. This wing of establishment opinion (acade- would be caused in the debate over how they validity of their convictions. the BWF defendants. FRAMED SILCOTT WINSTON BEING IS One youth, who was thirteen at the time of his arrest, was interviewed for hours clad only in his underpants and a blanket. The judge reprimanded chief superintendent Melvin personally for his treatment of the boy, and said that the boy's confession was 'high fantasy...incredible'. yet this confes- sion was the source of the 'fanciful' allegation already emblazoned across the press and TV as fact that, in the words of one Fleet Street ... a mob of youths who murdered PC Blakelock planned to cut off his head and or police, was produced. Nor was any photo- graphic evidence submitted identifying any case rested on the 'confessions' the defendants tain. No eye witness evidence, either civilian The entire police of the defendants. made to the police. paper.
national march against police murders of Black people, and the activities in defence of The main dynamic that lies at the heart of ment, community services and democratic repression - a racist police force. To fight for even the most basic civil rights, democra- tic demands or reforms for the black working class leads to confrontation with the authori- This in no way contradicts political cam- paigning around community self defence and state racism. The moves afoot to organise a the BWF affair is the conflict between black self-organisation and state racism. To fight for equality of treatment in housing, employ- policing as the BWFYA has done, inevitably challenges the main instrument of state be mobilised to support the BWF defendants. the BWF 3 will be entirely complementary. already been convicted for a murder at a party in Stoke Newington and was on bail on a charge of murder at the time was used to invent an extraordinary demonology around Winston Silcott's father outside the Old Bailey In the case of the adults convicted for life, access to solicitors, and interviewed for 14 ively; they both withdrew their confessions in court and claimed they were obtained under duress. In neither case had they admitted attacking Blakelock anyway. Braithwaite confessed to being on the Farm, throwing stones and hitting a policeman, although not Blakelock. The illiterate Raghip signed a confession in which he admitted throwing stones, pushing over a burning car and being on the edge of a crowd surrounding Blake- lock but unable to get close enough to hit him. The entirety of the evidence against Winston plant it on a pole'. None of the reasons for the cases against the juveniles involved being both were denied hours and 10½ hours at a stretch respect- dropped were made known to the jury. Raghip and Braithwaite,
13 of black people in Britain. It cannot be for broader black representation within the tarianism at the core of the British state - its racist repressive apparatus. The British ru- ling class will not, and cannot make any 'concessions' on this question. This is the lesson that the BWF youth learned when they demanded at the time of Mrs Jarrett's death that black people and the police be subject to the same equal treatment and democratic justice. In this sense, the BWF affair is the key to the development of black politics in Bri- tain. The question of evolving a political strategy and movement to confront state racism is the essential question for all those who pose themselves for political leadership subordinated to, or subsumed within, moves labour movement or at the electoral level. 'savages', linked to Silcott and the 'beasts of strengthened in a very real sense, by the trial. Virtually none sought to consider whether the complete lack of any evidence against him, or the fact that he was at the time on bail on a murder charge, made him the perfect candidate among BWF residents Silcott and the Farm. The gutter press con- tained repeated references to 'animals' and One policeman giving evidence during the ... like a scene out of "Zulu"..' A Daily Star column- ist said he wished he could see Silcott in a cage holding a banana. Colonial war was brought home to the streets of London, and the most atavistic themes of European racism police and media response to the Blakelock murder trial described the uprising as '. Broadwater Farm' being black. Silcott rested on the single statement that the police talk to you. You can't keep them away from Silcott never signed the police notes of his alleged remark. On the basis of these highly Why then did the jury convict on such feeble police evidence? Undoubtedly there was uncertainty, as the time taken to bring in the unanimous verdict the judge required showed. Margaret Burnham, a prominent black American judge who observed the trial and described the verdicts as "a gross miscar- riage of justice', summed up the probable allege he made when first arrested, 'You ain't got enough evidence, those kids won't give evi- dence in court. No one else.. no one else, will ambiguous and unconfirmed words he rec- eived a minimum life sentence of 30 years! Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 me'.
and massive job loss. Out of a workforce of The solutions are also depressingly fami- liar, a drive on "productivity' (exploitation) 236,000, a total of 70,000 jobs are said to be This programme requires the decisive weakening of the dominant BT union, the NCU, and of its militant left wing in the big ment have an able and determined ally in John Golding, the union's general secretary. cities in particular. In this project manage- Golding is the first union general secretary to gain office as a direct result of the Tory anti-union laws on balloting. He and the "NGU First" right-wing want a small highly paid NCU membership in BT. This would be under threat by the early 1990s. Telecom workers need a