EARLIER in the summer two very determined women won a small but significant victory against the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) which was forced to concede that the evidence on which they had previously decided not to take action against the police atter the deaths in custody of Shiji. Lapite and Richard O'Brien was seriously flawed.
Socialist Outlook spoke to Helen Shaw from Inquest, which has been involved in these particular cases about the background and some of the wider issues they are working to raise.
Inquest was founded in 1981 as a result of campaigns around people who had died in custody. It monitors deaths in prisons, police custody and detention centres and offers practical support and advice to the friends and families of those who have died in custody. SO - Could you explain a bit about the Shiji Lapite case and about the recent inquest verdict.
HS - Shiji Lapite was the third black person to die as a result of a neckhold after being severely beaten by police officers in December 1994. It's a really shocking case, and as usual the family had to wait years to get answers to their questions about what happened to Shiji. Shiji died when his larynx was crushed in the neckhold.
Clinton McIrvey died as a result of a neckhold and then Oliver Price, some years ago. After those two deaths there were recommendations from the Police Complaints Authority and even the Association of Chief Police Officers that officers should be warned about the dangers of neckholds. They said they should only be used as an absolute last resort to restrain someone because it is so dangerOUS.
In Shiji's case there was clear evidence that the officers had not used excessive force "accidently", and that they were lying in their account of events at the inquest The pathologists report said that the injuries that Shiji sustained and the lack of injuries on the police meant that the police account of events was not possible.
In our view, and that of the family, the solicitors and the campaign, the fact that the inquest gave a verdict of unlawful killing and that the jury clearly didn't believe the police officers involved means that the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) not to prosecute any of the officers was wrong and should be overturned.
In July there were Judicial Reviews of this case, the case of Richard O'Brien and of Derek Tredaway (which was a case of torture). The CPS conceded before the cases had even started that they needed to look again at the decision not to prosecute the police because the evidence was flawed.
If it hadn't been for the tenacity of the family and the campaign, their strength in being able to carry on through this long drawn out legal process (it is two and a half years since Shiji died), none of this would have happened.
The CPS has been forced to look again at the evidence. They won't necessarily prosecute the officers but it is a first step towards a review of what they did.
In our view the CPS just pay lip-service to the investigation - they don't look at the evidence properly. But it is hard to prove that there is a lack of political will for the CPS to prosecute the police. SO - Well what will happen now with the case?
HS - The CPS will have to make a decision on whether to prosecute and obviously we will keep raising the issue and the campaign must continue to publicise Shiji's case.
In our view it is not enough for cases like this to be investigated in court by judges, that's just one aspect. There needs to be a public inquiry into the whole way deaths in custody are investigated.
Until they look at the whole policy making process including policing policies and the whole question of institutionalised racism, we're not really going to see a reduction in the number of deaths. SO: What are the similarities and differences with Shiji's case and Richard O'Brien's?
HS: Richard O'Brien died after a struggle with police in April 1994 when he was held face down with his hands cuffed behind his back and his legs beat back at the knees. He died of positional asphyzia The police made racist com ments to Richard when be was lving on the ground. His tamilt and friends were harassed br the pu custody Taking the heat: Olamide Jones, widow of Shiji Lapite lice.
Again his wife, Alison O'Brien is a really strong woman, who has put up with this long drawn-out struggle through the courts.
What was different is that she has struggled on without the support from a strong campaign. She has had some support from Irish in Britain Representation Group and from Inquest.
The question of deaths in custody has always been an issue taken up by the black community, particularly over the last few years, and there is more of a community mobilisation around those issues than there is within the Irish community.
Cases are reported in the Irish press but there is little sense of any communication across different parts of the Irish community about deaths in custody. They are not generally taken up in either a national or political way. SO - Why do you think there is this difference between the Irish community and the Black community?
HS - I think that there is a greater politicisation amongst black people about being policed by a racist police force. Deaths in custody are just seen as the tip of the iceberg of a systematic form of racist policing that most black youth experience on a daily level.
them. SO - Ibrahima Sey's the background to his death? HS - Ibrahima Sey died after a struggle with police in which CS spray was used. What's really shocking about this case is that a few months after, all the police were authorised to use this spray. Research was carried out on the spray which said that although the inquest was still pending on Ibrahima's death, the spray was safe for police to use. really concerns us is that every time a new weapons is given to the police, somebody dies as a result of its use.
Inquest's view is that there is a tendency to arm the police with new weapons rather than look at ways that they can take the heat out of a situation where there may be violence.
In Ibrahima's case the inquest is going to be alot or argument about the medical cause of death. What this will point out again is the inadequacies of an inquest as a forum to investigate the circumstances surrounding deaths in custody.
It will not explore issues around police training, policing of the black community, police violence. As happened with the Wayne Douglas and Brian Douglas, inquests the focus is likely to be on medical arguments rather than the actions of the police involved.
It strays away from the issue that someone who was arrested for allegedly committing a crime ends up dead. There is no other forum to take up these kind of issues. What we hope will happen is that there will be an unlawful killing verdict but, as with previous cases there is no guarantee that this will result in a prosecution of the police. SO - How can people get involved in campaigning around issues of deaths in custody?
HS - It is difficult because in the past people have become involved with a bereaved family in a not very positive way, and families have sometimes felt used by campaigns.
People should take the issue into campaigns and organisations they are involved in, trade unions, political parties, and take up the broader issues of deaths in custody and their investigations. It is important to get involved in family campaigns but what happens with all these cases is that the way that the state looks at them is that they are all individual cases.
At Inquest, although we see each case as individual, we also look at the pattern between all these individual cases.
It is important that when people take these issues up in broader campaigns and organisation that there is a debate that addresses all the issues surrounding deaths in custody, policing and the investigation process itWe should be demanding a public inquiry into investigations and racist policing. It's not an issue that the left has been particularly good at integrating into its public campaigning.
There is need for a national organisation or campaign that deals with the whole issue of policing, not. just around deaths in custody. Inquest can't be that, it is only a very small organisation. There are a few surviving campaigns around, monitoring police actions but only a very small number. If there was a national campaign it would help to establish much broader about the Ibrahima Sey Memorial Campaign contact Newham Monitoring Project, PO box 273, London, E7, telephone 0181-555 8151 • Inquest can be contacted at Inquest, Ground Floor, Alexandra National House, 330 Seven Sisters Road, London, N4 2PJ, telephone 0181 - 802 7430