Report critical of police in Peach death demonstration

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 1

Report critical of police in Peach death demonstration

By

KEN COATES in London

The heavy-handed way in which the police dealt with the Southall demonstrations a year ago, in which a New Zealander, Blair Peach lost his life, is strongly criticised in the detailed findings of an unofficial committee of inquiry published by the National Council for Civil Liberties.

As a blueprint of how not to cope with a racial group that considered itself insulted by a National Front rally, and that wanted to demonstrate its feelings, the account could

them women, was “carried out with shocking, unnecessary, and unlawful violence.”

The house, used by an Asian cultural group with the blessing of the local authorities, was used as a rallying point by protest ters and members of the Anti-Nazi League. Police wielding truncheons burst in, ordering everyone out, beating them over the head as they left, including a doctor, solicitor, and first-aid worker. Police vans and a bus were deliberately driven at speed through crowded streets, protesters having to jump for their lives, it is reported.

Paul Croft, a witness, is quoted as saying: “None of the incidents I saw compared with the level of brutality on the part of the police in pushing innocents and treating all with general disrespect.

well be carefully studied

by the New Zealand police, anxious to preserve good relations with minority groups. . Even given that the in-

quiry has focused on the experiences of Asian members of the community in Southall, rather than on

“I was not at all surprised to hear of the death of Blair Peach, given the violence I had seen.” One of t ,e most surprising aspects of the report is the number of times witnesses speak of policemen’s abusing protesters and others not connected with the demonstration in derogatory. racist terms, such as “You black bastards.” There is evidence of police charges on horseback, with people being kicked on the ground and hit over the head' with both short and long truncheons.

what happened to the police, information from i more than 100 persons and organisations, as well as from 188 arrested, from court cases, press reports, and video tapes, suggests that a repetition should be avoided.

The inquiry team, headed by Professor Michael Dummett, of Oxford University, notes that there is still grave suspicion that it was a policeman who killed Mr Peach.

The report deplores the violence of demonstrators who injured 97 policemen. They should bear their share of the responsibility for what happened. But it does not accept that the responsibility was wholly or even mainly theirs.

“In circumtsances in which more than one witness had said the police were lucky there was onlyone death, and in which some policemen are known to have been discovered with illegal and lethal weapons, it is not surprising that those subject to these proceedings (subsequent prosecutions) have conceived a bitter disillusion with British justice,” the report says. It also deplores the fact that Commander John Cass’s report of his investigation into Mr Peach’s death has neither been published, nor made available to parties represented at the inquest. The inquest could not be a substitute for a public inquiry or for criminal proceedings, the report says.

The report is also critical of the role of the Special Patrol Group, and of weapons found in lockers of policemen. The offensive weapons would be illegal for anyone, policeman or not, to carry- in public, says the inquiry. “It remains to be seen whether any of the implements described could have caused the fatal injury to Blair Peach, but any of the weapons, in the hands of a determined assailant, could cause extremely serious or fatal injury.”

It is claimed that the police made a serious tactical error in cordoning the centre of Southall.

The report is critical of a lack of consultation by the police with local leaders about alternative forms of lawful protest. The police became alienated from the local community, depriving them of help from leaders and making protesters feel they were confronted by a force of hostile and sometimes racist outsiders.

Hostility from the crowd and attempts to break through the cordon brought serious, arbitrary, and unjustified retaliation by the police. Discipline broke down completely; and the pursuit of protesters, many of

The list includes a metal truncheon encased in leather, with a flexible handle and a lead weight in the end

Only a public inquiry could have the power to summon witnesses and order production of evidence, including, police orders and detailed commands.

A police attack on a house, after stone-throw-ing, makes grim reading.