Appeal against release of Peach report

Press, 27 May 1985, Page 10

Appeal against release of Peach report

NZPA staff correspondent London The London Metropolitan Police will appeal against last week’s High Court decision that an internal report on the killing of a New Zealand teacher, Blair Peach, must be given to his family. A spokesman for the Police Commissioner’s solicitor’s office said notice of the appeal would be served on the London lawyers acting for the Peach family. It would then go to the Court of Appeal, where it could be several months before it was heard. The report was prepared following the death of Mr Peach as a result of police

action after an anti-fascist demonstration in the London suburb of Southall in April, 1979. It was drawn up by Scotland Yard’s internal complaints investigation bureau, then headed by Commander John Cass, and is thought to name six officers responsible for the killing with evidence pointing to one in particular. According to a “Sunday Times” report in 1980 the Cass report recommended prosecutions be brought against the six, but this advice was rejected by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The police have maintained throughout that the

report was “privileged” and that legally they were unable to release it. Mr Peach’s mother, Mrs Janet Peach, of Napier, is suing the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police alleging negligence on the part of his officers in causing her son’s death. Her lawyers want to use the Cass report in the action and the High Court ruled last week that the police refusal to hand it over was preventing justice from being done. It is expected that whichever side loses in the Court of Appeal will take the matter to the House of Lords, England’s highest court.