No More Police Killings, Time For Justice: On Saturday 27th October 2012 I photographed the 14th annual march by the United Families & Friends Campaign (UFFC), a coalition of people whose family members and friends have died while in the care of police, prisons and in psychiatric detention.
Marcia Rigg holds the list of 3,180 known custody deaths since 1969
Tomorrow, 28th October 2023 the UFFC will again be marching from Trafalgar Square at noon, though the event will be rather overshadowed by a massive march taking place at the same time a short distance away supporting Palestine. I hope to spend some time covering both events.
Back in 2012 I wrote a long post, No More Police Killings, Time For Justice, on My London Diary about the event and little has changed since then, except that the list of those who have died has grown longer. So today I’ll quote some large parts of that article, along with some of the many pictures I took then.
A slow silent march in memory of over 3000 people who have died in suspicious circumstances in custody since 1969 made its way slowly down Whitehall to Downing St, where a rally called for an end to police violence and immunity from prosecution.
Among the families involved in the campaign, many of whom were represented at the protest, were those of Roger Sylvester, Leon Patterson, Rocky Bennett, Alton Manning, Christopher Alder, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Aseta Simms, Ricky Bishop, Paul Jemmott, Harry Stanley, Glenn Howard, Mikey Powell, Jason McPherson, Lloyd Butler, Azelle Rodney, Sean Rigg, Habib Ullah, Olaseni Lewis, David Emmanuel (aka Smiley Culture), Kingsley Burrell, Demetre Fraser, Mark Nunes and Mark Duggan. Every year the list of names of those who have died in custody grows by several hundred – and among the new names this year were Billy Spiller, killed on 5 Nov 2011 and Philmore Mills, killed in Slough on Dec 27, 2011 and Anthony Grainger, killed by police on 3 March 2012. A total of 3.180 whose names are known since 1969, and there are others about which no details are available. Many have died in situations where foul play seems obvious, but not one single police or prison officer has been convicted.
People carry a coffin on which families wrote the names of those killed
There they came to a halt on the southbound roadway and held a rally at which many representatives of the families who are campaigning for justice spoke. Their stories were a horrific indictment of the UK police and justice system, with case after case of mainly fit and healthy men (and their have been some notable women) being detained by police and after a remarkably short time in the hands of the police being dead. Most but not all were black, but there was considerable agreement when one of the speakers said it was not a matter of race but of class; some police felt they could treat working-class people they detained how they liked, and that they could literally get away with murder.
Carole Duggan described the officer who shot her nephew Mark Duggan last year as “a serial killer in a uniform”
Instead the police issue lies to the press – as in the case of Mark Duggan whose shooting which appears to have been an extra-judicial exection – sparked the recent riots, saying that the victims were pointing guns at police or false stories about drugs or gang connections or other stories which give lurid headlines. Often evidence later emerges which means they have to retract these stories – as in the case of the entirely innocent Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes.
Jan Butler, mother of Lloyd Butler who died in a police cel
These and other cases often too see police officers colluding with each other over stories – which again often unravel as more evidence emerges. We’ve seen too the deliberate use of discredited forensic investigators, as after the killing of Ian Tomlinson, as well as in that case and many others the deliberate use of delaying tactics in the investigation. CCTV evidence seems sometimes to mysteriously disappear, police fail to question officers who are the key suspects, and more. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has clearly too often has failed to be independent, often seeming to deliberately avoid or hide the the truth and to aid the police in getting away literally with murder.
Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennet, twin sister of Leon Patterson
In the article I went on to give some details of the cases that family members spoke about, including the cases of Mark Duggan, shot by police in London, Anthony Grainger shot in Warrington, Lloyd Butler who died in a police cell, Kingsley Burrell who died in hospital after police had sectioned him when he called for help, Leon Patterson, battered to death in a police cell in Manchester in 1992, Demetre Fraser, Jason McPherson, Christopher Alder and others. I had to leave while some family members were still waiting to speak.
As I left the rally a small group of EDL members came and began to shout abuse. Police did rapidly respond and lead them away, and stewards from the rally tried hard to stop people chasing them. I reported “I photographed one man abusing a photographer, forcing her to run rapidly backwards as he ran at her, and another with a camera trying to hide his face behind his coat as he was being photographed running away.” I think he had been photographing for the EDL and had assaulted a woman who had photographed him.
Janet Alder – her brother Christopher was killed by police in Hull in 1992
In the article I list the 10 demands contained in a letter the UFFC were to deliver to Downing St at the end of the rally. I don’t think any of them have been met. Although the IPCC – the so-called Independent Police Complaints Commission – was replaced in 2018 by a new Independent Office for Police Conduct, IOPC, which seems equally flawed. It still uses the police to investigate the police and of over 23,000 complaints made about poor policing between 2020-2021, only 18 resulted in a police officer facing a misconduct meeting or hearing.
Jobs, Services & Education, Police Violence & More: My work on Saturday May 23rd 2009 began with a march in North London before coming down to a couple of protests at Downing Street and then a march from Trafalgar Square to New Scotland Yard against police violence.
March to Defend Jobs, Services and Education – Highbury Fields to Archway
Around 1500 jobs had been lost recently in North London, including around 550 mainly support workers from London Metropolitan University, 500 civil servants from Archway tower and more at City University, where adult education is under threat.
Trade unionists from the Islington National Union of Teachers, the Public & Commercial Services Union, London Metropolitan University Unison and the University and College Union and other local groups including GiK-DER Refugee Workers Cultural Association were marching from Highbury Fields to a rally at Archway in protest against these job cuts.
The cuts in education threaten courses and also the provisions including nurseries that enable many mature students who missed out on education to study and get qualifications later in life.
Speakers at the rally after the march included those from the UCU, CWU, London Metropolitan University, PCS, Islington Trades Council and local Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn.
Southern Yemenis Demonstrate For a Separate State – Downing St
The state of Yemen has a long and complex history dating back to ancient times which is dealt with at some length on Wikipedia.
In the 19th century Britain attacked and occupied Aden and the surrounding region with the rest of the country being under the Ottoman Empire. In the 1960s a civil war in the north and a revolt against British rule in the south led to the foundation of two independent states, the Yemen Arab Republic in the north and the People’s Democractic Republic of Yemen in the south, who went to war with each other in 1972. After a ceasefire brokered by the Arab League and a further civil war the two countries were merged in 1990.
This London protest followed protests in Aden a week earlier on the 15th anniversary of an unsuccessful attempt by the southern Yemen leader Ali Salem al-Beidh to end the union with the north, which led to the 1994 civil war, lost by the South.
The protest was organised by Southern Yemenis from the Southern Democratic Assembly (TAJ), based in London who want an end to the union and accuse the Yemeni government of grabbing land and property and human rights abuses. They called for an end to the union with the north.
The Reverend Billy and his ‘Life After Shopping’ Gospel choir from New York were in London on their 2009 UK Shopocalypse Tour and gave a brief performance in front of the gates of Downing St.
Police were not impressed and obviously had no idea of who the Reverend was as in response to his questions the officer concerned was diagnosed by Billy as having a “shopping problem.”
The Church of Life After Shopping believes that we need to “back away from the product” and resist the way that advertising and the media persuade us to live only thorough consuming corporate products, and get down to experiencing life directly.
Excessive consumption is clearly at the root of climate change and the demand for incessant economic growth is clearly a long term impossibility in a finite planet. We need to be planning for a fairer sharing of resources between rich and majority worlds and an economy based on sustainability rather than growth – which will clearly mean lower levels of wasteful consumption and a concentration on necessities rather than luxuries.
As Billy made clear, following the G20 summit and the pathetic waste and greed shown in the continuing parliamentary allowances scandal, our government and MPs are clearly in need of the Life After Shopping Gospel.
National Demonstration against Police Violence – Trafalgar Square to New Scotland Yard.
The United Campaign Against Police Violence was set up following the G20 demonstration in London when Ian Tomlinson, a man not taking part in the demonstration, was assaulted by police and died. Many protesters and some press were also attacked by police during the protest.
It brought together trade unionists and activists involved in organising the G20 Meltdown demonstration as well as campaigners against deaths in police custody particularly those in the United Families & Friends Campaign, UFFC, including the families of two men who died in Brixton Police Station, Ricky Bishop and Sean Rigg.
The protest was led by a coffin with a brass plate “FOR ALL OUR LOVED ONES WHO DIED IN POLICE CUSTODY”, and included a giant red figure representing one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – who led the four marches that converged on the Bank of England in the G20 demonstration. Prominent in the march and rally were Professor Chris Knight and Sean Rigg’s two sisters, Marcia and Samantha and the Rev Billy added his voice through a giant megaphone.
At the rally outside New Scotland Yard on Victoria Street there were speeches and a minute of silence for those who had died before the release of black balloons to represent the dead.
The police had until almost the end of the event acted on their best behaviour, arranging for the safe movement of the protest and joking with press and talking calmly with the protesters. The protesters were clearly angry about police violence but the protest was restrained and orderly
But as the rally was about to draw to a close in front of the police headquarters a police van drove up and a woman officer interrupted proceedings to read a statement telling everyone their presence was illegal. It seemed inexplicable other than as a deliberate attempt to try to provoke a violent reaction from the peaceful crowd, but the organisers managed to quieten things down and the rally continued.
Four unrelated events kept me busy on Friday 6th December 2013.
EDL Protest Supports Marine A – Downing St, Friday 6th December 2013
In November 2014, a court martial found Marine A, Sergeant Alexander Blackman guilty of murder for his killing of a wounded Taliban insurgent in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. On the day his sentence was due to be announced the extreme right-wing EDL called a protest opposite Downing St, calling for a minimal sentence, arguing that he acted under extreme pressure and that his victim was a terrorist.
Although the EDL had predicted 500 would come, only fewer than 50 were there when I came to take photographs, and there were no placards and little to tell people why they were there, just the usual EDL flags, some with the message ‘No Surrender’, though quite a few of those taking part were wearing ‘I support Marine S’ t-shirts. Among the flags was one for the ‘Taliban Hunting Club’, with a skull with red eyes inside a gunsight and crossed guns, which seemed in particularly poor taste for this event.
The Geneva convention which Blackman said at the time of the killing he had just broken is an important protection for serving soldiers and many of them had strongly condemned the cold-blooded killing of a prisoner by Marine A and called for an appropriate sentence.
Later in the day Blackman was given a life sentence with a minimum of 10 years. Later this was reduced to 8 years, and after an appeal in 2017 the murder verdict was reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility with a prison sentence of 7 years, though his dismissal with disgrace from the Marines remained in place. There had been a large public campaign calling for his release or a more lenient sentence and a general feeling that his initial trial had been unfair, with his commanding officer not being allowed to give evidence and a generally poor performance by his defence team. He was released from prison the following month having served sufficient time.
Tributes to Mandela – London, Friday 6th December 2013
Nelson Mandela died in Johannesburg on the previous day, Thursday 5th December, and people brought flowers to the Nelson Mandela statue in Parliament Square.
There were more flowers at South Africa House in Trafalgar Square, where a long queue waited patiently for several hours to sign a book of remembrance in the High Commission.
Bereaved protest at CPS Failure – Southwark Bridge, Friday 6th December 2013
Families whose loved ones have died in custody held a protest outside the offices of the Crown Prosecution Service in Rose Court at their failure to successfully prosecute police officers and others over these deaths. Since 1990 there have been 1433 deaths and not a single conviction.
The last successful prosecution brought against a police officer was for involvement in a black death in custody was in 1972, after the death of David Oluwale in 1969. Police officers have been prosecuted for several other black deaths in custody – Joy Gardner, Christopher Alder and Mikey Powell – but none of these cases was successful.
The standard response given by the CPS for not bringing prosecutions is that there is ‘not enough evidence to prosecute’. The reason is often that police hide or destroy evidence and fail to carry out any proper investigation of these cases from the start, failing to treat them as a crime but more as something to be covered up. Often the officers responsible for the deaths are are simply not questioned, and in some cases they refuse to answer questions. CCTV evidence is often not available with equipment problems being cited, and officers have often falsified their evidence to protect themselves or their colleagues.
Among those who spoke was Marcia Rigg, whose brother Sean Rigg was murdered in Brixton Police Station in 2008. She began her speech with a tribute to Mandela. An inquest the previous year had concluded that the police had used “unsuitable and unnecessary force” on Rigg, that officers failed to uphold his basic rights and that the failings of the police “more than minimally” contributed to his death.
In March 2013 three police officers were arrested who had clearly committed perjury at the inquest but the CPS decided not to charge them. Later after a review forced by the family one was charged but despite the evidence was unanimously acquitted by the jury in 2016.
‘Cops Off Campus’ Protest Police Brutality – Bloomsbury, Friday 6th December 2013
London University management was trying to ban all protests on the campus and had called in police the previous day when students had occupied part of the Senate House. Police appear to have used excessive force in removing the students and on Friday 6th a large group of students had come out to protest against them and the University calling police onto the campus.
The previous day’s protest had been over the privatisation of student fees, but there were other issues, including the university’s intention to close down the student union, seen as a part of their aim to end all protests. Students have also been taking the side of low paid staff who work in the universityy, particularly the cleaners, security and catering staff and supporting their campaigns for a living wage, proper sick pay, holidays and pensions which they are denied as their work is outsourced. It was largely protests over this that had led the university management to try and ban all protests.
Today’s student protest was intended to be an entirely peaceful and orderly march around some of the various sites of the university in the area to the west and north of Russell Square, but the police had come apparently determined to stop them, with police vans down every side street.
There were a few short speeches outside the University of London Union and then the students marched to the locked gates of Senate House and shouted slogans. When they attempted to move off to march around the block their path was blocked by police, with a few students who tried to go past being thrown roughly backwards. The students wanted to keep the protest peaceful – there were many more than enough of them to have pushed their way through had they wished to.
Behind them at the other end of Malet Street was another line of police, with more blocking the only side-turning away from the campus. The only route free was onto the campus and the walked past SIAS and out onto Thornhaugh St, where they turned left to Woburn Square and on to Torrington Place. Here they found the gate to UCL was locked and guarded by security. They turned into Gower Street, saw more police coming up behind them and rushed into UCL. After a short time there they decided to make their way by the back streets to Torrington Square and the student union. I’d had enough walking and took a more direct route, meeting them as they arrived back. It was getting rather dark and I’d done enough walking and I then left to catch a bus on my way home.
I could see no reason for the way that the police had reacted to a peaceful march around the University; it seemed to be simply trying to show the students who was boss by preventing what appeared to be a peaceful protest, and a reaction which created considerably more disruption in the area than the protest itself as well as representing a terrible waste of public funds. But I’m sure some of the police were grateful for some extra overtime with Christmas coming up.
On Saturday 23rd November 2013 I photographed three protests in London.
Free Shaker Aamer March – Northcote Rd, Battersea
The march and rally in Battersea began close to the family home of Shaker Aamer, a British resident charity worker kidnapped in Afghanistan and sold to US troops. There was no evidence against him and he was first cleared for release from Guantanamo in 2007, but was still there and still being routinely tortured in 2013.
It was convenient for me, being just a short walk from Clapham Junction station, but too far from central London for most of the photographers who cover protests who largely stick to Zone 1 of the London Underground, so I felt my coverage of the event was particularly important in recording the event.
Aamer had gone from London with his family in June 2001 to work for a charity in Kabul. Four months later when Kabul was bombed he took his family out from the city for safety. Local bandits then seized a money making opportunity, kidnapping him and selling him to US forces on November 24, 2001.
He was then tortured by the US in Bagram and Kandahar, at times in the presence of British intelligence agents, before being illegally rendered to Guantanamo Bay in February 2002. Abuse and torture continued daily there and much of the time he was being kept in solitary confinement, subjected to particularly extreme treatment for continuing to protest his innocence and acting as a spokesperson for other prisoners, demanding his and their rights.
In 2013 despite never having been charged with any offence and twice being cleared for release Aamer remained a prisoner, the last British resident there. Many think he was still being held as the testimony he would give about his torture would be highly embarrassing to both US and UK intelligence agencies, and that the British government had been halfhearted in their public demands for his release, and in private urging the US to keep him locked away.
The campaign by the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign with years of protests outside Parliament and elsewhere had attracted considerable public support, including from his local Conservative MP and other MPs from all parties. There was a short rally outside the Baptist Church on Northcote Road before the marchers, many in orange Guantanamo-style jump suits and some with shackles and black hoods, began the short march through the busy shopping streets close to Clapham Junction to hold a longer rally at Battersea Arts Centre. I said goodbye and left them going up Lavender Hill to catch a train to my next event.
Remember Ricky Bishop – Jail his Killers -Brixton Police Station
Twelve years earlier on November 22, 2001, young black man Ricky Bishop was in a car being driven by a white friend in Brixton. Police stopped the car under suspicion as part of their area-wide anti-drug ‘Operation Clean Sweep’, searched Bishop on the spot and found nothing, but still handcuffed the two men and took them to Brixton Police Station. The white driver was not searched and was released without charge.
In the police station Bishop was taken into a small room and attacked by officers, though there was no CCTV evidence available of what went on. He went in a healthy 25-year-old fitness trainer. The beating caused him to have a heart attack, but the officers simply held him to the ground and only later called for a paramedic. Drugs were pushed into his mouth and stories invented to justify the arrest and assault. He was probably dead before an ambulance arrived and took him, still in handcuffs, to A&E at King College Hospital, standing around his dead body and making jokes. By the time his mother was informed of his detention he was dead.
Police issued a misleading press report and covered up what had happened, hiding evidence both immediately and at the inquest, where the jury were not allowed to come to a verdict that would assign any blame to the police. The Bishop family have accused 12 officers of murder, and their names were chanted at the protest around the ‘Remembrance Tree’ in front of the police station, each followed by a loud shout of ‘Murderer!’.
The arrest and subsequent treatment of the two men clearly reflected the racist nature of policing in Brixton, and the events following the death showed the failure of any real accountability of the police, with a criminal justice system that is complicit in letting police in this and many, many other cases literally get away with murder. Ricky Bishop’s death is one of several high-profile cases to have involved Brixton police over the years, in particular the death here of Sean Rigg in similar circumstances in August 2008.
There have been many marches and rallies in Brixton over these deaths in police custody, often at the tree in front of the police station, called the Remembrance Tree or the Lynching Tree by campaigners. There has been no sign that the police have taken real action to root out the systemic racism in the Metropolitan Police (and other forces.) The only action the police have taken is to remove all posters, candles, flowers and other signs of remembrance from the tree outside Brixton Police Station.
End Drone Attacks in Pakistan – Downing St to US Embassy
I arrived by Tube from Brixton too late for the start of the march by the PTI (Pakistan Movement for Justice party) from Downing Street to the US Embassy, then still in Grosvenor Square, but caught up with it as it went along Pall Mall, a few hundred yards from the start.
Around 500 supporters of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and a few from Stop The War and anti-drone groups were marching in protest against US drone strikes in Pakistan which have killed many innocent men, women and children.
It was I think the first march which the PTI had organised in London, and this showed, with the march sticking to the pavement and stopping at crossing lights.
London’s pavements are too busy for marches of this size and the march was soon broken up into a number of small groups by the lights, as those at the front carried on regardless of what was happening behind them. Some were carrying coffins, others posters and flags.
From Hyde Park Corner they went up Park Lane, which although always busy with traffic has wide pavements with few people on foot, and the march gathered together again, to make the final part of its journey to the embassy, walking past a camp with hunger strikers from the People’s Mojahedin of Iran to hold a rally in front of the embassy.
It was a noisy rally and the amplification for the speakers was not really enough for an outdoors event of this size. I listened to a couple of speeches then left for home.
A varied set of events from seven years ago on Saturday 31st October 2015
Ripper ‘Selfies with Dead Women’ – Cable St, Sat 31 Oct 2015
The Fourth Wave: London Feminist Activists (LFA) protested at the Jack the Ripper ‘museum’ against Halloween event publicity inviting visitors to take ‘selfies’ with the body of one of his dead victims. They were joined by comedian Kate Smurthwaite, Class War and the Sisters of Perpetual Resistance.
LFA came in cat masks and the Sisters of Perpetual Resistance came in their curious triangular black hoods with a banner ‘What a Bloody Ripp-Off’ and a bucket ‘Dead Women Can’t Protest‘. Comedian Kate Smurthwaite was there holding a poster ‘Corpses ain’t Tourism‘ and a little late Class War arrived with their ‘Women’s Death Brigade‘ banner.
The LFA also brought a decidely unsexy blowup doll with a mask of Ripper shop owner Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe with a Fawcett Society t-shirt ‘This is what a feminist looks like’, the word feminist crossed out and replaced in red by the word ‘CAPITALIST’.
Among those who spoke as well as the event organiser were Kate Smurthwaite and Becky Warnock whose petition against the s-called museum had got over 12,000 signatures.
UFFC Annual Remembrance Procession – Whitehall, Sat 31 Oct 2015
Families and friends of people killed by police or in prisons made their annual march at a funereal pace from Trafalgar Square to Downing St, to a rally with speakers including those from the families of Mark Duggan, Sean Rigg, Sheku Bayoh and others.
This procession has taken place each year since1999 and you can see my pictures from this year when it took place on 29th October 2022.
In 2015 the march, led by family members holding banners, made its way in silence down Whitehall before erupting into a noisy protest at Downing St.
Here there were speeches from family members including including Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson the uncle of Oscar Grant who was killed by a police officer in Los Angeles, Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennet whose twin brother Leon Patterson was killed by Manchester police in 1992, Kadisha Brown-Burrell, whose brother Kingsley Burrell died in police custody in 2011. Shaun Hall, the brother of Mark Duggan, shot by police in 2011 in Tottenham and Marcia Rigg whose brother Sean was killed in Brixton police station in 2008.
A small group of family members took a letter into Downing St while the rally continued. Although as t-shirts worn by many stated there have been ‘1518 deaths in police custody since 1990′ including many with clear evidence of beating and murder, not a single case has yet resulted in any justice. Police and authorities have prevented proper investigation of cases, committed perjury and obstructed the course of justice to protect the officers concerned.
Halloween Skate 2015 London – Hyde Park Corner, Sat 31 Oct 2015
On a very much lighter level I met with London Friday Night Skate at Hyde Park where they were to begin their annual Halloween skate in varied Halloween costumes.
I didn’t try to follow them after they left to skate their lengthy route through Mayfair, Soho, Covent Garden to an after-party at a pub near Kings Cross.
UVW Hamlet-themed Barbican Flash-mob – Barbican Centre, Sat 31 Oct 2015
‘Alas Poor Yorick Got No Sick Pay‘ was the message on the skull held up by the Cleaners union United Voices of the World as they staged a protest on the last night of a season there of Hamlet.
The were protesting for full payment of the living wage and sick pay for the cleaners there and and an end to the use of workfare in the centre. The cleaners are not directly employed by the Barbican and get far worse conditions of service and treatment than directly employed workers from the outsourcing company which the Barbican has a contract with.
The Shakespearian theme was continued in posters such as ‘To Be or Not to Be… Paid a Living Wage‘ and ‘To Be or Not to Be… Paid Sick Pay‘ while those theatre-goers seeing the protest were urged to tweet photos and videos with hashtag #Hamlet.
Among the protesters were Green Party leader Natalie Bennett and Sandy Nicoll, currently suspended SOAS Branch Secretary, and there were banners ‘Boycott Workfare’ and from ‘Unite the Resistance’ as well the UVW banner. Several from Class War had also come to support the cleaners.
There had been a couple of police officers present when I arrived on time for the protest, but they had disappeared well before the UVW turned up around 20 minutes late. Barbican security staff made some attempts to move the protesters on, but I imagine they are also outsources on lousy terms and conditions and that their hearts were not really in it.
Eventually after a number of speeches and some noisy chanting the police returned and talked with the UVW General Secretary Petros Elia who was leading the protest. He told them that the protesters were about to leave before tonight’s Hamlet was due to start and continue the protest outside the main entrance, and they then did so.
Outside the Barbican we joined some of the cleaners who work in the Barbican who had stayed outside and the protest continued with a rally in the street.
United Families & Friends March & Rally – Trafalgar Square to Downing St, Sat 25 Oct 2014
Marcis Rigg holds a list of those known to have died in custody between 1969 and 2011
Every year on the last Saturday of October since 1999 families and friends of people killed by police or in prisons made their annual march at a funereal pace from Trafalgar Square to Downing St where they hold a rally where members of the family of those killed speak.
Mrs Doreen Bishop, mother of Ricky Bishop, killed in Brixton Police Station in 2001
This year’s march is on 29th October 2022 and people gather in Trafalgar Square from noon for the march which is timed to start at 1.30pm. The march usually begins quietly, sometimes in silence but gets very noisy at Downing St. Everyone is invited come and support the families.
Some families carry banners with images of their loved ones who have died, and some wear t-shirts with images of them. The great majority of those who die in suspicious circumstances are young black men, and the United Family & Friends Campaign was started as a network of black families but has widened to support families of all races that die in custody.
Ajibola Lewis, the mother of Olaseni Lewis,
The UFFC web site has a long list of families who the network supports: “Leon Patterson, Roger Sylvester, Rocky Bennett, Harry Stanley, Sean Rigg, Habib ‘Paps’ Ullah, Azelle Rodney, Christopher Alder, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Paul Jemmott, Ricky Bishop, Mikey Powell, Jason McPherson, Sarah Campbell, Jimmy Mubenga, Paul Coker, Mark Duggan, Sheku Bayoh, Olaseni Lewis, James Herbert, Kingsley Burrell, Thomas Orchard, Amy El-Keria, Darren Neville, Jason McDonald, Philmore Mills, Mzee Mohammed, Adrian McDonald, Rashan Charles, Edson da Costa, Mark Cole” ending with “and many others.”
On My London Diary I mention a few of the speakers at the 2014 event: “Myrna Simpson, the mother of Joy Gardner, killed by police restraining her with a body belt around her head at her home in 1987… Marcia Rigg, whose brother Sean Rigg was killed by Brixton police in 2008, Doreen Bishop, whose son Ricky Bishop was also killed in Brixton Police Station in 2001, Ajibola Lewis, the mother of Olaseni Lewis who died when restrained by police called to a Croydon hospital, Jo Orchard, whose brother Thomas Orchard was killed by police illegally restraining him in Exeter, Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennet, whose twin brother Leon Paterson was killed by police in Manchester in 1992, and Carole Duggan whose nephew Mark Duggan was shot by police in Tottenham in 2011.”
I think all of these speakers are shown in the pages of my post where you can read more about this extremely moving annual protest at United Friends & Families March.
Acid Attacks on Women in Iran – Downing St, Sat 25 Oct 2014
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) called for the UK to condemn the attacks by regime-organised acid attacks on women who are not veiled in Iran. This followed similar protests in Isfahan and Tehran.
They also condemned Iran’s hanging at dawn of Rayhaneh Jabbari. She had stabbed a former Iranian intelligence official who tried to rape her; she was the 967th person to be executed since Hassan Rouhani became Iran’s president.
Democracy Camp Saturday – Parliament Square, Sat 25 Oct 2014
Despite continued harassment by GLA private security ‘Heritage Wardens’, Occupy Democracy has continued its presence in Parliament Square for over a week.
Michael Meacher MP speaking – and two extra hands
It was the final Saturday of their intended camp in the square and as well as a visit from the EDL – who were stopped by police and never quite made it – there were a number of workshops, including by energy boss Jeremy Leggett, Donnachadh McCarthy and MP Michael Meacher.
EDL Visit Democracy Camp – Parliament Square, London. Sat 25 Oct 2014
A small group of extreme-right EDL supporters came to shout insults and make gestures towards the Democracy Camp, but police stopped them going into the camp area.
George Barda came out from the camp to try to talk sensibly with the EDL members but was met by racist abuse.
One man objected to being photographed by a press photographer and was told firmly by a police officer that photographers are free to photograph him if they wish on the public street – as I had been doing. Shortly after this police surrounded the group and led them away towards Victoria station.
Mona Donle and Sean Rigg’s mother and sisters lead the march to Brixton Police Station
Sean Rigg Memorial 2012 – Brixton
Sean Rigg, a 40-year-old black musician and music producer was assaulted and arrested by police on August 21st 2008 and taken to Brixton Police Station where he died as a result of police violence.
Wikipedia fills in some details about what happened. Police had been called to Rigg, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had become “uncooperative and aggressive” in his hostel earlier in the day but they turned down five 999 phone requests from hostel staff asking for urgent assistance. They only eventually turned up after a number of calls from members of the public about his “strange behaviour” on the street outside.
Four officers arrived, chased and handcuffed him, then restrained him face down, leaning on him for 8 minutes, before placing him “face-down with his legs bent behind him in the caged rear section of a police van” and driving to Brixton Police Station, where he was kept locked in the van unmonitored for a further 10 minutes before, by then “extremely unwell and not fully conscious” he was taken into the police station.
It took 25 minutes for police to call their medical examiner to examine him, and the custody sergeant told the doctor he was “feigning unconsciousness.” Ten minutes later the doctor found his heart had stopped and he was not breathing. CPR failed to revive him but he was only officially pronounced dead after being taken to a nearby hospital.
This was the start of an immediate and sustained effort of lies and obfuscation by the police officers involved, the Metropolitan Police, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the Crown Prosecution Service and even courts to cover up what had actually happened and protect the police officers who killed Sean Rigg.
And the story would have ended there, but for the incredibly determined efforts of his family to uncover the truth. The Sean Rigg Justice & Change Campaign was set up, led by his sisters Marcia Rigg-Samuel and Samantha Rigg-David and supported by the rest of the family. One of many family-led campaigns which togther make up the United Families and Friends Campaign, it also got support from other organisations including Inquest and Black Mental Health UK and has slowly managed to bring the many of the facts out into the open.
Four years later, on August 21st 2012 I was in a full Assembly Hall inside Lambeth Town Hall for the Sean Rigg Memorial where a number of speakers including Sean Rigg’s sisters gave details they had managed to uncover of his death, the misleading press releases from the police and their attempts to cover up and the total failure of the IPCC to carry out a proper investigation. At the end of the meeting the 50 minute film ‘Who Polices the Police’ directed by Ken Fero of Migrant Media was shown.
Speakers also talked about other cases of suspicious deaths in police custody where again there has been no proper investigation – and no police officer has ever been found responsible.
Mona Donle
Mona Donle spoke about an incident she had witnessed two days earlier across the road in Windrush Square, where police arrested another man who was clearly disturbed and acting unpredictably. One officer choked the man by holding his forearm across his throat, then another officer stamped on him. The foot was on his face when he passed out and people kept telling the police to call an ambulance. Another witness to the event told me it was around twenty minutes before the man came round – and he still had the clear impression of the boot across his face. The police record of the incident made no mention of any violence and suggested the ambulance came ‘approximately’ five minutes after the arrest.
Brixton Police Station
The inquest into Sean Rigg’s death had brought out some more of the details, and its verdict 3 weeks earlier had ‘concluded that the police had used “unsuitable and unnecessary force” on Rigg, that officers failed to uphold his basic rights and that the failings of the police “more than minimally” contributed to his death‘.
Three police officers had clearly committed perjury in their evidence to the inquest and were arrested in 2013. One was cleared by the IPCC and in 2014 the Crown Prosecution Service announced it would not bring criminal charges despite what appeared to most people compelling evidence. Later the Rigg family campaign forced the CPS to review that decision and one officer was charged, and the case was brought. Inexplicably the jury decided to acquit him.
The inquest verdict also led to the setting up of an external review of the IPCC investigation, which gave an extremely damning verdict on there total failure to properly investigate the events. It and other investigations into the IPCC led to this being replaced in 2018 by the Independent Office for Police Conduct. It will surprise no-one if that is also replaced in a few years time.
After the memorial meeting around 200 of those present marched behind the Sean Rigg Campaign banner from the town hall to Brixton Police Station, where flowers were laid at the memorial tree outside, candles lit and a minute’s silence held for Sean Rigg and other victims of police violence.
Samantha Rigg and Mona Donle then took a formal complaint into the police station about the police assault two days earlier and were followed in by a crowd, packing out the small lobby. Police made a copy of the complaint and gave them a signed and dated copy. They asked to see the officer in charge, and after a few minutes he came to a side door and answered what questions he could about the arrest.
There still, 14 years on from his death, despite the huge fight by his family, has been no justice over the death of Sean RIgg. Nor for the families of others who have died in police custody, prisons etc.
Ten Years Ago – Chariots & Custody Deaths – On Sunday 17th June 2012 I photographed two very different events in London
Hare Krishna Chariot Festival – Hyde Park
Effigy of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977) the founder of ISKCON (Hare Krishna)
More than a thousand Hare Krishna devotees turned up in Hyde Park on Sunday morning to pull three giant chariots through the streets of London to Trafalgar Square.
People pull the chariots with ropes and others sweep the path for it
The Rathayatra Chariots Festival first took place at the Jagannatha temple at Puri, Orissa on the east coast of India probably at least a thousand years ago. It celebrates the attempt by Krishna’s childhood friends who were cowherds to try and kidnap him after he became a great lord and take him back to their village on a cart.
There are three chariots to carry the three deities worshipped at Puri, e Krishna in the form of Jagannatha, his half-sister Subhadra, and Balarama her brother. Jagannath means ‘Master of the Universe’ and his name and the chariots in the festival give us the word “juggernaut”.
Subhadra’s representation on her chariot
Hare Krishna disciples celebrated the festival in San Francisco in 1967 and it was first celebrated by a small group here in 1969, but only became a large event in London much more recently. It is one of the more colourful annual events in the city. I left as the procession left Hyde Park.
Fathers Day Vigil for Custody Deaths – Brixton Police Station
Family members call for Justice for Ricky Bishop, Justice for Sean Rigg
It was Father’s Day and the families of men killed by by police held vigils on outside police stations across the country. At Brixton, the family of Ricky Bishop was joined by the sisters of Sean Rigg and friends.
The inquest into Sean Rigg’s death in Brixton Police Station in August 2008 had begun the previous week. Following his killing police issued an incredible number of false statements, lying to protect the officers involved and the IPCC backed them with further deliberately misleading statements.
Although the police failure to make investigations and properly question officers involved, along with the destruction of evidence made prosecutions of the officers involved impossible the inquest jury delivered a damning and substantial narrative verdict which included a majority view that the improper and unnecessary restraint of Sean Rigg ” more than minimally contributed” to his death.
Although later three officers were arrested for having committed perjury at the inquest the IPCC cleared one of them and the CPS decided to drop the two other cases. The family appealed and one officer was charged with perjury but was acquitted by a jury despite having admitted giving false evidence.
You can read a fuller account of the efforts by the family to get justice on Wikipedia. Although two inquiries have found a long list of failings by the police there have been no successful prosecutions of the officers involved.
Ricky Bishop was arrested by police in Brixton in November 2001 and taken to Brixton Police station. A healthy 25 year old he suffered a heart attack and was restrained by police who only later called for a paramedic. It took several hours for police to take him to hospital where he died.
None of the eight officers involved in this death have been suspended or prosecuted and they remained on active duty.
These were not the first or the last suspicious deaths involving Brixton Police station – and a woman came up during the event to tell us of her relative Colin Bardley who she said was beaten to death there around 30 years ago. And there are similar cases elsewhere. My post on My London Diary quoted from a report published by the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody in 2011 which states ‘in total, there were 5,998 deaths recorded for the 11 years from 2000 to 2010. This is an average of 545 deaths per year. Despite the fact there have been 11 unlawful killing verdicts since 1990 there has never been a successful prosecution. ‘
More about the event, on deaths in custody and more pictures at Fathers Day Vigil.
PPolice & Public Sector March, 4,000 Days of the Parliament Square Peace Campaign approaches – some of my pictures from Thursday 10th May 2012.
Police March Against Cuts and Winsor – Westminster
Occupy supporters in plastic helmets joined the police march
An estimated 20,000 police from all 43 forces in England & Wales marched through central London in protest at 20% cuts in police budget and proposed restructuring following the Winsor review. Occupy, Right To Protest and others joined in to protest for justice in policing.
Police are not allowed to strike or belong to a proper trade union, but the Police Federation can organise demonstrations like this when thousands of off-duty police, some with family members made a impressively large if rather dull protest past the Home Office, the Houses of Parliament and Downing St. Most wore one of the 16,000 black caps produced for the protest, the number of officers expected to be lost over the next four years as the police budget is cut by 20-30%.
Police officers attempt to intimidate the Space Hijackers
Like other public sector workers, police had suffered a two year wage freeze, as well as increases in pension contributions and many have also had large cuts in overtime. As well as those protesting, police were also on duty controlling the protest, though it was unlikely to get out of hand. But there were others as well as police, including the Space Hijackers who had a stall giving advice on how to protest, and also Occupy protesters who were calling for “a fully, Publicly funded, democratically accountable Police force who’s aims and objectives enshrine the right to peaceful Protest in some sort of People’s Charter!”
Others were there to protest against various aspects of police corruption and faced some aggravation from the officers on duty as well as some protesters. The Defend The Right To Protest group reminded police marchers of Alfie Meadows, Sean Rigg, Ian Tomlinson, Jean Charles de Menezes and many others killed or seriously injured by police officers. Officers on duty made some attempts to intimidate some of the non-police protesters – and also photographers covering the event.
Public Sector Pensions Strike and March – St Thomas’ Hospital to Westminster
Public sector workers in Unite, PCS and UCU were on a one-day strike against cuts in pensions, jobs and services, and picketed workplaces and marched from a rally at St Thomas’ Hospital across Westminster Bridge to Methodist Central Hall for a further rally.
PCS picket at Tate Britain
Some of the pickets had begun at 5am, and a few were still in place as I walked past workplaces in Westminster – including the Houses of Parliament to meet the marchers coming over Westminster Bridge.
As they marched, many chanted “Sixty-eight – is TOO Late”, as retirement age is set to increase to 68 and beyond, while retirement contributions are increasing. They are also losing out because the government has decided to index pensions to the lower CPI inflation figures which mans they get around 15-20% less. Over 94% of Unite’s NHS members voted to reject the government’s proposals and take strike action today along with members from the Ministry of Defence and government departments as well as others from the PCS and UCU.
4000 Days in Parliament Square – Parliament Square Peace Campaign
Brian Haw came to Parliament Square to begin his protest there on the 2nd June 2001, and the Parliament Square Peace Campaign he started had been there for almost 4,000 days, with a presence night and day, 24 hours a day since then.
Barbara Tucker
After Brian’s death from cancer the protest was continued by Barbara Tucker and other supporters who have maintained the protest on those various occasions when Brian or Barbara was arrested and held overnight. Over the years the campaign has been subjected to frequent illegal harassment by police officers, Westminster Council officials and thinly disguised members of the security service, and laws have been enacted intended to bring the protest to an end.
A few hours before I arrived, police had come and spent 90 minutes “searching” the few square meters of their display in the early morning, and three days later, at 2.30am on Sunday 13 May, police and Westminster Council came and took away the two blankets that Barbara Tucker, no longer allowed to have any “structure designed solely or mainly to sleep in” by law was using to survive in the open. Clearly a blanket is not a structure, and police and council have also removed other items of property. Later her umbrella was also taken away. Barbara’s health deteriorated and she eventually had to leave the square, and the protest finally ended early in May 2013.
Reclaim Brixton – Arches, Markets & More – 25th April 2015
A day of events in central Brixton on Saturday 25th April 2015 celebrated its social & cultural diversity, increasingly under threat as increasing rents and property development are forcing out local businesses and residents.
Brixton boomed after the railways arrived here in the 1860s, the new transport links making it both a popular middle-class suburb and the major shopping centre of South London; it had the first purpose built department store in the UK, Bon Marché, opened in 1877 and continuing in business until 1975 and probably the first street market in the world to be lit by electricity in Electric Avenue. While the wealthier moved out in the first half of the twentieth century to leafier areas, the increasingly working-class population grew, as did the markets, cinemas, pubs and other facilities.
After the war Brixton became increasingly multiracial. Arrivals on the Windrush were given temporary housing in the Clapham South deep shelter, and found jobs from the nearby Brixton Labour Exchange and housing in rooms and flats in the area. Though many had intended to go back to the Caribbean, most remained here, bringing over family to joint them and over the years Brixton became a centre of the British African-Caribbean community. In 1981 locals rose up against heavy handed policing but the conclusions of the Scarman report were largely ignored and it was only after the death of Stephen Lawrence that the police were declared “institutionally racist.”
There was further unrest after the death of Wayne Douglas in police custody in 1995, and there was an increasing attempt by Lambeth Council to change the nature of the area seen by them as regeneration but by many in the area as gentrification.
Brixton Arches tenants protest eviction
The railways run on viaducts through central Brixton, and the arches below them, particularly along Atlantic Road and Brixton Station Road have long provided low cost spaces for local businesses.
But Network Rail decided to increase the income from these spaces and the existing tenants were threatened with eviction and then a tripling of rent for the refurbished space. One of the businesses, fishmongers L S Mash & Sons, had been trading here since 1932 and others since shortly after the war.
The businesses closed for two hours on Saturday lunchtime, many hanging white sheets with messages across the frontage and others inviting graffiti artists to decorate the shutters. These businesses, the arcades and the market really are the heart of Brixton.
Brixton Black Revs (revolutionaries rather than reverends) had wanted to march peacefully through the gentrified ‘Brixton Village’, but police and security guards blocked their way into the arcade, and instead it became a very short march to take housing and other activists directly to the Reclaim Brixton gathering in Wind rush Square
Granville Arcade which links Coldharbour Lane, Atlantic Road and Popes Road was built in 1937 with over 100 shops in its covered avenues, and was named after its developer, P Granville-Grossman. The site had previously been the Lambeth Carlton Club, a large Georgian-style mansion buit in the 1870s and home to the Brixton Conservative Association.
It was renamed Brixton Village around 2005 and was saved from demolition by a powerful local campaign which resulted in it and Reliance Arcade, Market Row being given Grade II listing. The listing text makes much of the importance of the Afro-Caribbean nature of the markets, but although listing saved them from demolition it has not protected them from gentrification and the replacement of much of this character by trendy restaurants and boutiques.
The area in front of the Tate Library and Brixton Ritzy was renamed Windrush Square in 1998. It had long been a popular meeting place for locals and local events, but Lambeth Council with offices in the town hall opposite clearly saw that as something of a threat, and spent a large amount on turning it into a desolate, bleak and unwelcoming windswept area to discourage the informal gatherings that took place there.
Although today the area was reasonably crowded, there seemed to be nothing very organised happening. Unite Community had a microphone at one side and there were a speeches, but few seemed to be taking any notice of them. When I walked around there was a group playing classical music, another of African drummers, and the Revolutionary Communist Group had its own megaphone and speakers, while people were having a light-hearted limbo competition to a musical accompaniment from the Unite ‘stage’. And some of my friends had disappeared to a nearby pub.
After an hour or two hanging around in Windrush Square, activists again took to the street for a lively march around Brixton.
Rather to my surprise, the march simply returned to Windrush Square. I hung around for a bit but everything seemed very peaceful and I mistakenly thought that perhaps nothing more would happen and decided to take a bus to begin my journey home.
Shortly after I left some people stormed and briefly occupied Lambeth Town Hall and a large window at Foxton’s estate agents was broken, and a few activists went into Brixton Village with banners.
Marcia Rigg whose brother Sean Rigg was killed in Brixton Police Station in 2008
Things in Brixton have got worse since 2015. In 2018 Hondo Enterprises owned by Texan property developer and part-time DJ Taylor McWilliams bought Brixton Market which includes the arcades and the following year announced plans for a 20 storey office block, which were approved by Lambeth Council in November 2020. Hondo now brand the whole market area as Brixton Village.
