Nobody hit, police tell Peach inquest

Press, 9 May 1980, Page 3

Nobody hit, police tell Peach inquest

NZPA London The Special Patrol Group police who charged demon-

strators at Southall in April last year did not hit any demonstrators themselves or see any other police using their truncheons, the inquest into the death of Blair Peach was told yesterday. | On the fourth day of the hearing at the Hammersmith i Coroner’s Court into the ■death of Mr Peach, three sergeants and seven constables of Unit Three of the S.P.G. told low they had formed up behind riot shields to confront stonethrowing demonstrators. They had charged at the crowd fleeing from a sixwheeled “carrier” containing men from another S.P.G. unit, but they had not seen the men from that unit after the van passed. The charge, and the call for assistance which preceded the arrival of the van that drove into the crowd, had come after a constable had been felled by a brick thrown by a demonstrator, breaking the officer’s jaw in three places. It was surely understandable that feelings would be running high after the police had been under a barrage of bricks and bottles and one of their number : badly hurt, Sergeant Paul Galpin said. It was possible ■ that some officers might 1 have let their feelings run 1 away with iem. ; But no-one had seen any 1 demonstrators hit, and none of the witnesses had hit 1 anyone themselves. I

The jury heard evidence by the three sergeants and seven constables — all at that time members of Unit Three of the S.P.G. — which was often contradictory in some details.

All the men had been part of the S.P.G. unit that had had its vans pelted with stones, bottles, and other debris late on the day of the April 23 demonstration against the National Front, in the area in which Mr Peach was found suffering from the head injury from which he later died.

Sergeant Galpin said he had drawn his truncheon but had not used it.

Like all the S.P.G. units, his unit had been involved in policing virtually all the big demonstrations in London since the S.P.G. had been formed in the mid--19605.

“This was the first time I have experienced such a violent anti-police demonstration,” he told the Coroner (Dr John Burton). ”1 say anti-police because

this to me is what it was . . the meeting of the National Front was some hundreds of yards away.” Cross-examined by Mr Richard Harvey, counsel for the Anti-Nazi League, the main opponents of the front. Sergeant Galpin agreed that it had been the purpose of the police to keep the antiNazi demonstrators “from getting anywhere near the National Front.” Constable John Murray, who had served with Sergeant Galpin in the S.P. for almost six years, had been hit in the face by a brick, breaking his jaw in three places. Sergeant Galpin’s reaction when he saw’ Constable Murray go down injured was to “get the man responsible” . . an Asian man wearing a yellow jersey. Protected by shields, many of them with truncheons drawn, the men in the unit had formed a line to con

front the remaining core o demonstrators.

Mr Harvey: Would it be fair to say feelings were running high among the police? Sergeant Galpin: If anybody throws a brick at you, your feelings would be running a bit high. It is understandable, surely. Was it also understandable, Mr Harvey suggested, that officers could have let their feelings run away with them when chasing the demonstrators? “It depends entirely on the individual officer,” Sergeant Galpin said. “I will accept that it is possible.” Sergeant Peter Winman disagreed. In a situation such as that facing the police at Southall it was particularly important that the police exercise restraint, he said.

Questioned by counsel for the Peach family, Mr Stephen Sedley, he said it was part of being a policeman that personal feelings could not be allowed to interfere with the job.

The situation generally and the injury to Constable Murray had given the police “no licence whatsoever,” Sergeant Winman said. Constable Lawrence Austin described how he had run down the road after the line of demonstrators across the road had been broken by the arrival of another earner from another S.P.G. unit.

Returning to his- own unit’s van he had seen a white man, sitting on the footpath at the comer or the road, with his back against a garden wall. He had taken little interest in the man but he appeared to have bushy

grey hair and had seemed about 40. Cross-examined he said he had not noticed if the man had a beard. (Mr Peach was bearded and was- later taken inside a house near the same comer).

"There was nothing apparently wrong with him. He was Just sitting against a wall,” Constable Austin said. He had not approached the man, and the man had said nothing to him. None of the other witnesses remembered seeing the man, the court heard. The inquest jury will not be shown television film of. the Southall riot, the Coroner decided on Wednesday. The jury had asked to see a film to gain something of the "atmosphere” of the demonstration.

The Coroner said the only film available was that shown on news programmes which were highly-edited versions of all the original film shot. There had been no camera crew or. as far as was known, photographers in the actual area round which the inquest revolved. After listening to counsel the Coroner said he would not make the videotapes available but would collect what still photographs and other relevant material that could be found for the jury’s inspection today.