A healthcare system which AFTER YEARS of imprisonment for a crime that they did three were the victims of frame-up right from the start; merely that the evidence on which they were convicted is 'unreliable.
Winston Silcott, Engin Raghip and Mark Braithwaite were, in fact, the chance victims of a wave of racist hysteria following the 1985 uprising on Broadwater Farm. to finish. Silcott, the main butt of the right-wing tabloids, did not even appear in the 1,000 photos taken of the events. convictions, there are a number positive results coming out of the cases. First and foremost, that the three are free after years of ill-treatment by racist prison officers. Superintendent Melvin, the principal concocter of false evidence. It will be difficult for the state to argue that Melvin, currently suspended from duty, should not be subject to any punishment after lying on And third, the collapse of the case has contributed mas sively to the growing pressure on the British judicial system.
The use of uncorroborated 'confessions, forced from vic tims who are denied any legal representation, has been com pletely discredited. A reform in this area at least seems in creasingly likely.
hardly got to the heart of the matter.
focus on industrial action new Police National Computer.
This, symbolised by the Battle of Orgreave beat' war on organised workers.
method of industrial action.
at Stonehenge to black youth in the inner cities. There was not a shred of real evidence against them fromstart Site the hypocrisy of the legal rhetoric of 'unsate Second, that the pressure is mounting for a conviction of Home Secretary Baker Police confidence has been dealt a blow - in the aftermath of the Birmingham Six and the Tottenham Three, public protest at olice corruption has been widespread. But though reform rould be welcome, discussion of the role of the police ha During the 1980%, the police were increasingly built up as a semi-militarised force to smash political protest by the Thatcher vernment. This started with the systematic harassment of black people under the notorious 'sus laws and then moved to The test case was clearly the 1984-85 miners strike. During the year-long conflict, tens of thousands of police were mobilised on a national level, coordinated through the centralis. ing body ACPO (the Association of Chief Police Officers) and the my, yo a localised police force compose or fate to neto The case of the miners strike, together with the print workers struggle at Wapping in 1986-87, played a key role in Thatcher's Together with successive waves of anti-union legislation, mass industrial struggle was effectively wiped off the scene. The Wapping strike was the last attempt to use mass picketing as a But it was not only the shock troops' of the industrial unions that were targets for the Thatcherites in uniform. Any collective defiance of the police was regarded as fair game, from hippies The Tories may have cheered at the 1989 demonstrations in castern Europe, but their response to any such display of mass protest at home had more in common with Ceaucescu's It is the political role of the police - as the strong arm of the Though the left has not generally fallen for the now discredited 'bad apples' propaganda, major far left currents such have treated them as a part of the workers Militant argue that police are 'workers in uniform' - as they do with the army, ignoring the difference between a conscript and a professional army. As a result, their approach is to call for But given the key role that the police have played in smashing struggles over the last decade, the argument that these brothers and sisters' are a littie It is only a new growth of confidence in the labour movement and a new wave of workers struggle that will lay the groundwork for a real assault on police powers. But in the meantime, any sapping of their credibility and limiting of their