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Custody Deaths, Vegans & Fracking – 2016

Custody Deaths, Vegans & Fracking: Saturday 29th October 2016 I photographed the annual United Family & Friends Procession and Rally against deaths in custody. My day had begun with a protest outside a Barclays Branch in Piccadilly Circus over their support for fracking, and the UFFC march was held up to allow a vegan march to go past to a rally in Parliament Square.

The 2026 United Family & Friends Procession is this Saturday, 31st October 2026, meeting at noon in Trafalgar Square.

Families United against Custody Deaths

*Janet Alder whose son Christopher was killed by police in Hull leads the procession from Trafalgar Square*

On My London Diary you can read a little more about some of the cases of those who have died while in police custody in suspicious circumstances, in some cases clearly murdered by police.

*The first page of the list of over 3000 who are known to have died in custody since 1969*

Very few of the cases of 3,180 people known to have died in suspicious circumstances in custody since 1969 have ever come to court. Mostly the official investigations by the so-called independent bodies which investigate the police (formerly the IPCC, now the Independent Office for Police Conduct – IOPC) have failed to carry out their work in a proper or timely fashion almost certainly deliberately to make any prosecutions impossible.

The DPP also appear to have colluded in this with the result that with there has been no justice done. In my post on My London Diary there are just a few of many examples.

*Raised fist salutes as the march goes down Whitehall*

*Kadisha Brown-Burrell, whose brother Kingsley died in police custody in 2011*

*There was a brief pause for remembrance at the monument to the Women of World War II*

*The mother of Amy El-Keria, who died aged 14 in a Kent hospital. An inquest found there had been gross negligence but no one has been prosecuted for her death.*

The procession moved at its usual funereal pace down Whitehall, stopping completely numerous times on the way, taking around half an hour to cover the few hundred yards. Families and banners lined the side of the road and speakers from the families spoke in the southbound lane.

*Marcia Rigg holds up the letter to Theresa May*

I had to leave before the speeches were finished shortly and before a small deputation went to take a letter for Theresa May to Downing St.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Families United against Custody Deaths.

Bring Fracking Home to Barclays

Piccadilly Circus

*The ‘living room’ with a mother and daughter from Ryedal and the fracking rig in front of Barclays*

Before the United Families and Friends protest I had gone to Golden Square to meet protesters preparing for a protest outside the Piccadilly Circus branch of Barclays Bank, which is involved in fracking in communities across the country.

*Taking Fracking to Barclays Piccadilly*

*and setting up the living room in front of the branch after the doors were shut as they tried to enter*

They practised anti-fracking songs and chants around a mock fracking rig before picking this up and walking towards the branch. On their way they met others carrying a a sofa, table and other furnishing.

*Protesters inside hold up their banner in the window*

Others had gone ahead and entered the bank branch with hidden banners. As the main group came into view security at Barclays locked the door and those inside got out their banners, holding them against the windows.

The protesters outside set up a ‘living room’ on the pavement along with the fracking rig and its operators.

*Tea table, Living Room & Fracking Rig at Barclays*

“A mother and daughter from Ryedale where fracking has been approved around their home made themselves at home on the sofa with a picture of their house and a framed sampler embroidered with the Barclays eagle and the message ‘Home Fracked Home’.”

*Tea was served – and I had a cup as well as*

Tea was served and there was a plate of specially baked biscuits with the message ‘Stop Barclays Fracking’. Leaflets explained that this protest, organised by Frack Off London and Divest London with Frack Free Ryedale was part of a series of protests at branches of Barclays across the country against the bank which is hoping to make large profits from its investments in fracking.

A few police came to tell the protesters they were obstructing the pavement, and made sure that there was plenty of space for people to walk past without having to go on the road.

The protest was still continuing when I had to leave to go to the UFFC event.

Vegans march for Animal Rights

The start of the United Family & Friends Procession was delayed for some minutes by police to enable a march by hundreds of vegans to pass on its way to Trafalgar Square.

Organised by London Vegan Actions and Surge their protest called for an end to the exploitation and death of animals for food, fur and leather. They demanded an end to animal testing and for everyone to change to a vegan diet which would end horrific farming practices and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Arguments developed as some of the marchers passing those meeting for the UFFC march shouted out ‘White Lives Matter!’ Others on the vegan march, including some Black vegans as well as some from the UFFC event argued with them for being racist, but the UFFC stewards moved to quieten things down and the vegan march passed on.

I’m opposed to farming practices involving animal cruelty but know that many farmers treat their animals well, and commented that although “a shift towards eating considerably less meat would make a welcome contribution to reducing global emissions, I think the world would be a much poorer place if we all took up a vegan diet.

Not only would many become less healthy, as a varied diet is good for us, but animal farming is a vital part of our way of life and has largely formed our landscape. An England without sheep, cows, chickens and pigs would be a very different place, and these animals only exist because we breed them for meat and diary products.”

More on My London Diary at Vegans march for Animal Rights.

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UFFC Annual Remembrance Procession – 2017

UFFC Annual Remembrance Procession: On the last Saturday of October each year The United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC), a coalition of of people whose family members have been killed by police and in prisons, immigration detention and secure psychiatric hospitals make a procession of Remembrance from Trafalgar Square to a rally opposite Downing Street. In 2017 this was on Saturday 28th October. This year, 2026, will be the 27th Annual Memorial Remembrance Procession and it starts at noon in Trafalgar Square this Saturday, 31st October 2026.

The pictures in this post were all taken by me at the 2017 procession, and you can read more about it on My London Diary at UFFC annual remembrance procession. Here I’ll post the text of the release from the UFFC about this year’s event. I hope that Andy Burnham will respond more quickly than his predecessor to this year’s letter.

Memorial Procession announced for Oct 31st 2026

On Saturday 31st October 2026, UFFC will march to Downing Street for our 27th Annual Memorial Remembrance Procession. We assemble to remember our loved ones, demand accountability, and break the silence surrounding the alarming rise of deaths in state custody across the UK.

For nearly three decades, our coalition of bereaved families has led this solemn procession. Our collective pressure has historically forced major changes – from the rollout of body-worn video cameras to the enactment of Mental Health Units Use of Force Act (Seni’s Law). Yet, despite these hard-won reforms, state violence persists, and families continue to face a wall of silence.

27 Years of Tragic Delays: Slow Justice is No Justice

This year’s procession takes place against a backdrop of deep political frustration. It took Prime Minister Keir Starmer 21 weeks and 5 days to respond to a letter hand-delivered by our families. The response we finally received, penned by Minister of State for Justice Lord Timpson, offered mere platitudes. While Timpson praised our efforts to ensure bereaved voices are heard, the government entirely ignored our explicit call for a direct meeting.

While the state references the proposed Hillsborough Law Bill, reforms on ‘seriously improper acts’, and promises of legal aid funding for inquests, we are left asking: When will these laws actually be implemented? and What about our unresolved cases?

The Fight Continues

Many UFFC families, such as Celia Stubbs (partner of Blair Peach, killed by police in 1979), have been campaigning for nearly half a century with agonisingly little acknowledgment. These families have also been spied on by the state (See Spycops). Much like the survivors of the Hillsborough disaster and the Post Office scandal, our families are forced to expend years of energy, emotional trauma, and funds just to demand basic truth.

Justice delayed is justice denied. Join us on 31st October to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the families, break the cycle of state impunity, and demand immediate action from the government.

You can find pictures and accounts of most of the other UFFC processions from the first I attended in 2003 until 2019 and 2021 on My London Diary and from more recent years in my Facebook albums.

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Police Killing, No Borders, Malaysia & Dance of the Dead – 2010

Police Killing, NoBorders, Malaysia & Dance of the Dead: Saturday 30th October 2010 I went to the annual protest by United Friends and Families against deaths in custody, then a march by No Borders against surveillance and border control. At the Malaysian High Commission I photographed a protest against torture and other human rights abuses before finally going to photograph zombies in a Halloween Dance of the Dead Street Parade in Hoxton.

United Friends & Families March

Trafalgar Square to Downing St

Police Killing, No Borders, Malaysia & Dance of the Dead - 2010 — *Marcia Rigg-Samuel, sister of Sean Rigg, killed by police in Brixton, tries to deliver a letter at Downing St*

The annual march by United Friends and Families of those who have died in suspicious circumstances in police custody, prisons and secure mental institutions went in a slow, silent funeral march down Whitehall to Downing St, where they held a noisy rally.

Police refused to allow them entry to the street to deliver a letter to the Prime Minister, David Cameron and would not take it. Apparently nobody from No 10 was prepared to come and receive it.

This march has taken place every year since 1999 and in most years police have stood back and let it happen, even facilitating it by stopping traffic. This year they had decided to try to stop people marching on the road down Whitehall, but the protesters simply stood in the road blocking it and refusing to move and were eventually allowed to proceed.

On My London Diary you can read more about a few of the several thousands of deaths in police custody, often clearly at the hands of officers.

Among speakers at the rally were Stephanie, the twin sister of Leon Patterson, Rupert Sylvester, the father of Roger Sylvester, Ricky Bishop’s sister Rhonda and mother Doreen, Samantha, sister of Jason McPherson and his grandmother, Susan Alexander, the mother of Azelle Rodney, and finally the two sisters of Sean Rigg.

There were noisy scenes at the gates to Downing Street as the protesters tried to deliver a letter to the Prime Minister calling for justice, with police at the gate even refusing to accept the letter addressed to him. Eventually a few of the group were allowed to sellotape the flowers, a photo of Sean Rigg and the letter to the gates.

Much more at United Friends & Families March.

Life Is Too Short To Be Controlled

Piccadilly Circus, London

*Juliet speaks at Piccadilly Circus before the march*

London NoBorders had organised a march from the pavement above the London main CCTV control room at Piccadilly Circus to the UK border at St Pancras International, protesting about the obsession with surveillance and border control.

Westminster Council CCTV HQ, which controls many of London’s 10,000 CCTV cameras, able to follow our movement on almost every street in the capital was an obvious starting point for the second ‘Life is Too Short to Be Controlled’ protest organised by London NoBorders.

They point out that despite CCTV everywhere on our streets it had not been possible to show a link between it and crimes being sold and say the real purpose of spying on our every movement is its potential to control dissent.

The protesters also called out the deliberate racism inherent in the term “illegal imigrants“. No immigrants on reaching this country are illegal; they simply do not have the particular documents that give them the right to live here and only became illegal once their case to stay here has been turned down.

Until recently the free movement of people – like the free movement of money, goods and capital – was seen as normal and beneficial.Our immigration rules are explicitly racist and NoBorders say anyone should be able to move and live where they please.

The march was delayed and I had to leave for another event before it reached St Pancras International, where those taking the Eurostar enter of leave the country. The station has detention facilities run by the UK Border Agency.

I returned later to hear that they had briefly occupied the ‘border’ area there before being escorted out by police. One person had been arrested and apparently charged with aggravated trespass, but I was told he was shortly to be released by the Transport Police.

Life Is Too Short

Stop Torture in Malaysia

Belgrave Square

2010 was the 50th anniversary of the Malaysian Internal Security Act, ISA, under which more than 10,000 people have been detained without trial for up to two years – and this can then then renewed making it effectively indefinite.

Detainees can be held incommunicado in detention for up to 60 days, during which they are often tortured, mistreated and placed under severe psychological stress while being denied access to legal process.

In June 2010 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention visited Malaysia and they called for the ISA to be immediately repealed, and the UK chapter of the Malaysian Abolish ISA Movement (AIM) was protesting outside the Malaysian High Commission.

The protest in October marked 23 years since ‘Operation Weed Out’ (Operasi Lalang) when the ISA was used to arrest over 100 Chinese educationalists, civil rights lawyers, opposition politicians and others.

More on My London Diary at Stop Torture in Malaysia.

Halloween In London & Dance of the Dead

West End & Hoxton Square

I’d met a few zombies stumbling around as I walked through the West End – and some of them had come to be photographed with the NoBorders ‘Life is too Short’ banner. But I went photograph the the Halloween Dance of the Dead Street Parade which started from Hoxton Square and was going on to end at a party in Gillett Square, Dalston.

Hoxton Square had by 2010 become a trendy area with art galleries such as White Cube moving in an area some years after furniture and other local trades had declined and it had been squatted or rented as cheap studios for artists since the 1980s or so. Below is what I wrote in 2010 about the parade.

“By 7pm, there were several hundred people ready for the procession to start, including a group of dancers, the ‘Corpse de Ballet’ and a group from Strangeworks with some very well designed costumes, along with many others dressed up for the occasion.”

“A samba band, led by a giant skeleton came along from Coronet Street and led the large group of revellers, many carrying bottles, around Hoxton Square and then on to Old Street. By this time I’d been out taking pictures for around 8 hours and was feeling tired and hungry, so I jumped on a bus to begin my journey home, leaving the procession, organised by StrangeWorks Theatre collective and [then} in its fifth year, to head on its way to a dance in Gillett Square.”

More pictures at Halloween In London.

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Black Lives Matter London – 2016

Black Lives Matter London: Although there is a long history of Black struggles against racism in Britain the Black Lives Matter movement with its hashtag #BlackLivesMatter only really became established here in 2016, three years after it was first formed in the US in 2013.

This protest, on Friday 5th August 2016, five years and a day after the killing of Mark Duggan by police in 2011, along with those at Heathrow and in Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham were part of a ‘National Shutdown‘ which marked the emergence of Black Lives Matter UK.

The rally took place in Altab Ali Park on Whitechapel Road. Altab Ali, a Bangladeshi textile worker was stabbed to death in a racist attack by three teenagers in the adjoining street on 4th May 1978. In 1998 the park, formerly St Mary’s Park, was renamed in his memory.

"The event was called by BLMUK, a community movement of activists from across the UK who believe deeply that #BlackLivesMatter but are not affiliated with any political party. They called for justice and an end to racialised sexism, classism and homophobia and a new politics based on community defence and resilience."

Among those taking part in the rally were activists from Stand Up to Racism, from families of Sheik Bayou and Sean Rigg who had been killed by the police as well as Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennett whose twin brother Leon Patterson was battered to death by police in a Stockport cell in 1992, Movement for Justice and Sisters Uncut.

There were speeches from the various groups including BLMUK and from NUS President Malia Bouattia before the rally split into large groups from North, South, East and West London to discuss further actions.

Sisters Uncut set up flowers and candles in Altab Ali Park in East London to commemorate the many UK victims of state violence, including Duggan, Sarah Reed, Mzee Mohammed, Jermaine Baker, Sean Rigg, Leon Patterson, Kingsley Burrell and over 1500 others, disproportionately black, since 1990.

I left the rally before the end, when protesters blocked Whitechapel Road outside the park and some went on to block other roads in East London

More pictures on My London Diary at Black Lives Matter London.

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Goodbye & Good Riddance 2023 – October

Goodbye & Good Riddance 2023 – October began as just another month, but the world changed with the Hamas attack across the Gaza border with Israel on October 7th. I missed the first emergency protests against the Israeli response but the rest of my year was dominated by protests against the killing of civilians and children in Gaza by Israeli forces.

**UFFC Annual Rally & Procession 2023**. London, 28th October 2023.
The annual remembrance procession by the United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) marching from Trafalgar Square to Downing St for a rally with speakers from the families whose relatives were killed by police and in penal, mental health and immigration detention. They call for justice and proper investigations of the officers involved suspected of crimes.
Peter Marshall

**National March for Gaza – Ceasefire Now**, London, UK. 28 Oct 2023.
Many thousands march through London called for an immediate ceasefire as Israeli forces bombarded the country and cut off all communications. Thousands of children and other civilians including 110 medical staff have already been killed and supplies of water, food, medicines and fuel are running out with a with Israel denying access to all but a tiny trickle of humanitarian aid and ignoring the UN General Assembly vote.
Peter Marshall

**More Pictures – Gaza Ceasefire Now!** London, UK. 28 Oct 2023.
Peter Marshall

**Gaza Ceasefire Now! Protest At Waterloo Station**, London. 28 Oct 2023.
Several hundred protesters sat down in Waterloo Station concourse in a protest calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as Israeli forces bombarded the country and cut off all communications. Thousands of children and other civilians including 110 medical staff have already been killed and supplies of water, food, medicines and fuel are running out with a with Israel denying access to all but a tiny trickle of humanitarian aid and ignoring the UN General Assembly vote.
Peter Marshall

More from my Facebook albums for 2023 tomorrow.

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