Smiley Culture & Orange Order: On Saturday 16th April I photographed two very different marches in London. The first was by several thousand people, mostly black, in protest over the death of reggae star Smiley Culture during a police drugs raid on his home and later I took pictures of the annual parade in Westminster by the City of London District Loyal Orange Lodge.
Who Killed Smiley Culture?
On 15th March 2011 police raided the South Croydon home of reggae star Smiley Culture at around 7am, apparently in relation to a drugs charge on which he was due to appear in court shortly. An hour and a half after their arrival, he is alleged to have been allowed to go into his kitchen alone to make a cup of tea, and to have killed himself with a single stab to the heart.
As many commented, it seemed a most unlikely story. Surely police would “not have allowed a man they had arrested to go alone into his own kitchen, where apart from the possibility of escape they would also know there would be dangerous weapons. And killing oneself with a single stab wound to the heart is not an easy task. His family and friends are sure there was no reason why he should have wanted to commit suicide.”
In April 2011 the case was being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and their report went to the coroner. At the inquest in 2013 the jury were unable to reach a unanimous verdict but the coroner accepted a majority verdict that the death had been suicide, while criticising the police for their lack of care and the IPCC for faults in their investigation.
Wikipedia reports that at the request of the coroner the IPCC report “was neither made public nor made available to Emmanuel’s family” and questions remain about the actual circumstances of his death and of the IPCC’s statement “that there was neither criminal conduct by officers, nor individual failings by officers that might amount to misconduct.“
As I pointed out in my post, “Deaths in police custody are unfortunately not rare, and according to Inquest, in the twenty one years since 1990 there have been a total of 930, with 247 of these in the Met area.“
I went on to say that few of these cases get “more than a short paragraph in the local press” unless as in this case they involve celebrities or take place in public with witnesses and often videos of the event; “most of them take place in the secrecy of the police station or other premises with police officers as the only witnesses.“
Among those taking part in this march were families whose sons and brothers also died while in police custody, and in my post on My London Diary I mentioned some of these. The march took place on the “anniversary of the death of David Oluwale, killed in the first known incident of racist policing in 1969; his death remains the only case in British history that police officers have been found guilty of criminal offences leading to the death of a suspect, although they were found guilty only of assaults, the judge ordering the charge of manslaughter to be dropped.”
The death of Smiley Culture was one of several cases identified as a contributing factor to the riots later in the year after the police shooting of Mark Duggan by a study led by the LSE and The Guardian.
In February 2025 a blue plaque was unveiled outside Smiley Culture’s home from 1976-1980 on the Wandsworth Road, close to where this march began, celebrating his contributions to music and culture.
The City of London District Loyal Orange Lodge (L.O.L.) led their annual parade through London with lodges and bands from around the country taking part.
Founded in 1796 to uphold the Protestant religion, the Orange Order was was revived in the early twentieth century to oppose Home Rule for Ireland, and still plays a powerful role in Northern Ireland politics and government, embedded in Unionist politics.
Parades in Northern Ireland are still controversial and seen by many Catholics as deliberately provocative, while many Orangemen regard the Parades Commission, set up to regulate these events as discriminating against them. But here in London they have little political significance and are a colourful celebration of the Irish Protestant tradition.
From Millbank the parade marched around Parliament Sqaure and then on to the Cenotaph where wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen and former comrades by the City of London Lodge, two lodges from Glasgow and the Maine Flute Band from Ballymena.
I left them opposite Downing Street where some had gone in to deliver a letter to the Prime Minister before the parade moved on to its end at statue of the Duke of York in Waterloo Place.
My 2024 in Photographs: The fourth and final part of my selection of images from 2024.
London, UK. 17 Aug 2024. A giant chicken on the protest. Several thousands march from Marble Arch to a rally in Parliament Square to demand that animals should not be treated as property or resources for humans. They call for cages to be emptied, animal testing to be ended and an end to all use of animals for any purpose whatsoever, demanding “Animal Liberation NOW!” One of my holiday images – a trip to the coast from where we were staying in Narberth, Pembrokeshire.Another from my holiday – Blackpool Mill in Pembrokeshire.London, UK. 28 Sep 2024. Singer Madeleina Kay, Young European Movement, with her guitar.. Several thousands came to Park Lane for the third grassroots National Rejoin March aiming to put rejoining Europe back on the political agenda and to keep it there until we are back in Europe. The marched behind a banner ‘WE WANT OUR STAR BACK’ from there to a rally in Parliament Square. London, UK. 24 Oct 24. Hundreds sit with pictures of political prisoners and other banners and posters in the road over lunchtime outside the Attorney General’s office at the Ministry of Justice to call on him to free the 40 UK political prisoners jailed for protesting peacefully against fossil fuel and Israeli arms companies. They demand an end to judges stopping defendants explaining the motive for their protests and uphold the right of jurors to make decisions based on their conscience. London, UK. 26 Oct 2024. As the end of the peaceFul march against extreme right hate came into Trafalgar Square, a group behind a black banner ‘NO TO TOMMY ROBINSON – NO TO FASCISM’ turned off the route towards the Mall and made a halfhearted rush towards a police line, with a small group trying to push their way through – most just stood watching. Police pushed back and the two groups faced each other. A few minutes later one man was pushed out of the crowd and through the line by a small police squad.London, UK. 26th October 2024. The letter to Starmer. The annual remembrance march by the United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) from Trafalgar Square could only go a short distance down Whitehall and held their rally at the Cabinet Office. Speakers from families whose relatives killed by police and in penal, mental health and immigration detention called for justice and proper investigations of the officers. London, UK. 28 Oct 2024. Men in oilskins carry a pink inflatable dinghy. Extinction Rebellion marches to stages theatrical flooding scenes outside insurers in the city to show how insurers are green-lighting fossil fuel crooks to flood our homes and our lands. They hope to stop insurance for new fossil fuel projects; flooding due to global warming is already common and threatens us all. London, UK. 30 Oct 2024. Reading The Crimes outside insurers MarshMcLennan. Extinction Rebellion ended their 3 days of protests at Insurance Companies in the City with a Zombie protest, predicting the social collapse with wars, famine and floods that will happen if CO2 levels and the climate chaos they cause continue to increase. They protested with zombie dancing, die-ins and speeches outside some of the worlds major insurance companies based in London urging them not to insure fossil fuel projects. London, UK. 2 Nov 24. Health Care Workers. After a die-in by some at Downing St, many thousands marched in a massive PSC National Demo to a rally close to the US Embassy in Nine Elms calling for urgent action by the international community to end brutal attacks on civilians, hospitals and schools in Gaza and an end the deliberate starvation of Palestinians. All arms supplies to Israel should end, with an immediate permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages and negotiations for a two state solution.London, UK. 2 Nov 24. Jeremy Corbyn. After a die-in by some at Downing St, many thousands marched in a massive PSC National Demo to a rally close to the US Embassy in Nine Elms calling for urgent action by the international community to end brutal attacks on civilians, hospitals and schools in Gaza and an end the deliberate starvation of Palestinians. All arms supplies to Israel should end, with an immediate permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages and negotiations for a two state solution.London, UK. 3 Nov 2024. Marches wear blue for water flood the streets from Vauxhall on route to a rally in Parliament Square called by River Action. They demand a review of Ofwat and the Environment Agency, an immediate end to industry polluting our waters for profit and greed – particularly sewage discharges, for laws on water pollution to be enforced and for all industries to invest in better use of water. London, UK. 30 Nov 2024. As the death toll from Israel’s attacks in Gaza is now over 43,000 and many now face starvation with every hospital having been bombed and with virtually no medical supplies, with the UK is still complicit in the genocide, thousands including many Jews, marched in yet another entirely peaceful mass protest in solidarity. They call for an immediate ceasefire with the release of hostages and prisoners and for negotiations to secure a long-term just peace in the area. London, UK. 14 Dec 2024. Hundreds of BMX riders dressed as Santa, Elves, Snowmen, Christmas Trees and Reindeer set off from the graffiti tunnel at Leake Street Waterloo for the 10th annual Santa Cruise around central London, a fund raising event for the charity Evelina Children’s Heart Organisation. BMX Life raises money for ECHO through sponsorship on these rides and two major raffles each year and has so far raised over £180,000 for ECHO. London, UK. 14 Dec 2024. Tenants organised by the London Renters Union march demanding urgent action on city’s spiralling rents, which are tearing London apart – the average rent of £2,172 is now more than the pay of many vital workers such as teaching assistants and care workers, forcing many into cramped temporary accommodation. The scrapping of rent controls in 1988 and the mass sell-of of council homes have prioritised landlord profits and Labour’s current housing plans are based on private developers profits rather than providing social homes.
You can double-click on any of the images to see them larger and you can see many more pictures from these and other events in 2024 and earlier years in my albums on Facebook.
Marine A, Mandela, CPS Failures, Cops off Campus: On Friday 6th Decemeber 2013 some very varied events were taking place in Central London. Here they are in the order I photographed them.
EDL Protest Supports Marine A – Downing St
The EDL had called for a major protest at Downing Street on the day that ‘Marine A’, Sergeant Alexander Blackman, was to be sentenced, but only around 50 supporters were there when I arrived.
Blackman was being tried for the murder of a wounded Taliban insurgent in Afghanistan in contravention of the Armed Forces Act 2006, and became the “first British soldier to be convicted of a battlefield murder whilst serving abroad since the Second World War.“
I commented “I doubt if there are many serving soldiers who would wish to see the Geneva conventions disregarded, and wonder what support if any this protest would have from serving soldiers, many of whom have condemned strongly the cold-blooded killing of a prisoner by Marine A and called for an appropriate sentence.“
However many did feel when later that day he was sentenced to “life imprisonment with a minimum term of ten years and dismissed with disgrace from the Royal Marines” he had been treated harshly, and in 2014 the sentence was reduced to eight years, then after a public campaign overturned on appeal and reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Given the time he had served he was released in April 2017.
Tributes to Mandela – Parliament Square & South Africa House
Nelson Mandela, the “Father of the Nation” who had become the first president of a new post-apartheid South Africa from 1994-1999, having previously spent 27 years in prison before his release in 1990, had died the previous day, 5th December 2013.
People brought flowers to the Nelson Mandela statue in Parliament Square and to 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
Marcia Rigg holds a picture of Mandela as she addresses the protest against the PCS
Since 1990 there had been 1433 deaths of people in custody, many under highly suspicious circumstances and not a single conviction of any police, prison officers or security guards who have either failed in their duty of care or more actively caused their deaths.
Relatives and friends of those who dies had come to protest outside Rose Court, the home of the Crown Prosecution Service. 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 was successful.
The standard response from the CPS – led by Keir Starmer from 2008-2013 – is that there is ‘not enough evidence to prosecute’, largely because the cases have not been properly investigated. Often the police involved are simply not questioned, and in some other cases they simply refuse to answer questions.
‘Cops Off Campus’ Protest Police Brutality – Bloomsbury
Following protests by students and others against student fees and cuts, the closure of the student union and calling for acceptable pay and conditions for low paid largely migrant cleaners, catering staff, security staff and others, the University management had tried to ban protests on campus and had brought in numbers of police to enforce that ban.
This protest was called after the previous day police had brutally assaulted a group of students who had briefly occupied a part of Senate House, arresting a number of students including the Editor of the student newspaper and a legal observer.
The organisers had intended this to be an entirely peaceful march around the various s sites of the university in the area to the west and north of Russell Square, but it was clear that the police had other ideas. There seemed to be police vans down every side-street in the area as students assembled on the pavement outside the University of London Union in Malet St.
There were a few short speeches before the march set off to walk around the block but were stopped by a line of police across the street, with those who tried to walk through it thrown roughly backwards.
They turned around only to find police blocking both the other end of the street and a side street leading to Gower Street and their only way open was to go onto the campus, walking past SOAS and out onto Thornhaugh Street. There they turned up into Woburn Square and then turned to make their way into UCL, only to find the gates from Torrington Place were locked and guarded by security.
They then turned into Gower Street where they saw another group of police rushing towards them and they then rushed through the gates into the Main Quad. Here there was a lot of discussion about what to do next and they eventually decided to take a back street route to Torrington Square, and set off at a rapid pace. I took a more direct route to meet them there. But by now it was dark and I was tired of walking around London and decided to go home.
The police operation seemed to me “an incredible and pointless waste of public money, and it resulted in more inconvenience to the public than if the event had not been policed at all.” Perhaps more importantly this kind of policing alienates a large proportion of young people, acting strongly to destroy the ‘policing by consent’ which has always been the the basis of our police system.
March & Rally Against Custody Deaths: The march in London on Saturday 26th October 2024 by the United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) was the 25th annual remembrance of the thousands who have died after being arrested by police or held in prisons, secure mental health and immigration detention in suspicious circumstances.
The exact number of these deaths is not known, but is clearly very much larger than any official statistics. At some earlier of these events people have carried a list with well over 2000 names from the last 40 or so years.
Just a few of these cases have become well-known, both through continuing protests by the families and friends of those who have been killed and in a few cases also through inquests and prosecutions. But prosecutions have been rare and convictions non-existent even where the evidence has seemed clear.
Marcia Rigg holds Keir Starmer’s 1988 booklet ‘The right to life’.
Most have involved physically fit young men, usually in their 20s, who have been arrested by police. People from all communities but with young black men being over-represented, but there are also those of Asian heritage, white British and all others, women, older people. Almost all from the poorer parts of our society.
Attempts by the families to get information about the deaths have often been obstructed by police and official investigations into what happened have often been at best cursory, often more concerned with covering up than investigating. Despite the huge number of deaths there have been no convictions, no cases where families have felt they have received justice. And one of the most common chants is ‘No Justice, No Peace!’
Few of these cases receive more than a short paragraph in a local newspaper, and where they do get more coverage it is largely due to the persistence of the families in finding the evidence, campaigning and presentations to inquests – often deliberately delayed for many years by the authorities.
One of these is of course the case of Sean Rigg, killed by Brixton Police in 2008. At his inquest four years later, despite several police officers committing perjury, the jury concluded the police “more than minimally” contributed to his death – and were highly critical of the restraint that killed him. Eventually one officer was charged with perjury but acquitted by the jury despite the evidence. His family, particularly his sister Marcia Rigg, continue to fight for justice.
This annual march and rally has usually been completely ignored by the mainstream press – though journalists including myself have covered it. This year there was rather more interest than usual following the ‘not-guilty’ verdict on the police officer who shot Chris Kaba in the head at close range.
On Saturday The Guardian misreported this event in a single sentence in an article on page 6 about Robinson’s arrest: “the United Families and Friends Campaign is planning a protest in Trafalgar Square against the acquittal this week of the firearms officer who shot Chris Kaba dead.”
Justice for Chris Kaba campaigner.
The UFFC wasn’t. It had planned its usual annual commemoration and protest over the many thousands of custody deaths, though supporters of Chris Kaba’s family took part in it, and one of them spoke breifly at the start and at the rally in Whitehall where there were also a number of speakers from other family campaigns.
Trafalgar Square – or rather its southern edge – was only the start of the march, which was to a rally in Whitehall. Normally this would have taken place at the entrance to Downing Street, but this year there was a police barricade some distance before this, and instead the rally took place in front of the Cabinet Office.
The interest aroused by the Kaba shooting did make for a larger protest than in previous years and it was augmented too by some people who had arrived early for the Stand Up to Racism rally. Several thousand filled out across the street to listen to the families speaking.
As usual a small delegation from the event were to deliver a letter to the Prime Minister at Downing Street, though in some years they have been refused entry by the police. They too were prevented by the police barricade, but later I heard that police had helped them deliver it. But as well as the letter, the envelope contained a copy of the 1998 booklet by Keir Starmer, ‘The Right To Life’ in which he had written “When citizens die at the hands of the police, or make serious allegation of torture in police custody, the reaction of the state raises very serious questions about the protection of human rights.”
Justice for Chris Kaba campaigners and Qian Zheng, partner of late Benjamin Zephaniah raise fists,
You can listen to one of the speeches from the rally, by Temi Mwale, founder of the 4Front Project, in which she quotes from that booklet in a video on the Real Media site.
Grenfell – 7 Years On: Seven years after the terrible fire that killed 72 people in Grenfell Tower and left many others traumatised we still have no justice. None of those whose deliberate actions and failures that set up this firetrap and made a disaster virtually inevitable has yet to be brought to court.
Pictures here are from the first anniversary of the fire on Thursday 14th June 2018. You can see my account of this and more pictures on My London Diary.
The inquiry dragged on and although it has ended taking evidence its final report has been delayed and delayed. Initially due in late 2023 it is now expected to be released in Autumn 2024, although that may well be delayed yet again.
When it does come it will almost certainly be too little as well as far too late. Grenfell was a crime and the major criminals were obvious from the start. The inquiry – as it was always meant too – has tied the hands of the police in pursuing the criminals and bringing them to justice. It seems doubtful there will be many if any prosecutions and if they take place they are likely to be only for minor offences.
I don’t think anything much of significance has emerged from the years of the inquiry that was not already evident in early reports on the fire – such as that published by Architects for Social Housing in July 2017, although we have some more detail. But the inquiry has mainly served as an opportunity for some involved to take part in buck-passing and blame others or to claim ignorance of the obvious.
And of course to generate considerable incomes for the lawyers, who have had a field day thanks to the excessive adversarial nature of the inquiry. The delays in publishing the report are all down to the inquiry having to consult with those who are named in it. We urgently need a streamlined process for such inquiries – and this should almost certainly involve prosecutions of the more obvious criminals before the inquiry begins.
But although the grass has grown longer, Grenfell Tower is still there as a reminder of the terrible events which began which shortly before 1am on Tuesday, 14 June 2017. Although by the first anniversary in 2018, from which the pictures here come, its scarred and blackened bulk had been hidden by white sheetong. But at the top was a grey panel with a large green Grenfell heart and the message ‘Grenfell – Forever In Our Hearts‘.
As I wrote in 2018, “Some felt it should have been left standing uncovered – particularly as the disaster was caused by covering up the building to make it look nicer for the academy at its base. Without that covering the fire would have been a minor incident with no loss of life.”
I continued “The academy in front of the tower was also built without proper regard for access for fire engines to fight the fire when it happened. To make things worse, Boris Johnson had cut the fire service drastically and they no longer had the equipment to fight the fire in the upper stories – it had to come from Surrey – and successive governments had removed regulations and cut safety inspections (they called it ‘red tape) which would have prevented the inferno.”
Here are the details from the Grenfell United web site of the 7th Anniversary Silent Walk:
Join us at the Silent Walk on 14 June 2024 to mark 7 years since the Grenfell Tower Fire. We will gather at the Nottinghill Methodist Church from 6pm and the walk will begin at 6:30pm. There will be speeches and a call to justice at the end.
Please walk in silence with us to show those responsible we are not going anywhere until we see justice.
You can see more from the first anniversary walk in 2018 at Massive Silent Walk for Grenfell Anniversary Among those taking part were both then Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott.
Grenfell Remembered in South Norwood. On the 14th of every month since the terrible fire on 14 June 2017 I remember Grenfell, though its something which has fallen out of the news. The Grenfell Inquiry dragged on – as it was meant to – until November 2022, and now its final report is not expected until some time in 2024. Such is the long grass which the UK excels in to protect the guilty, or at least the wealthy guilty who are an integral part of the establishment and corporate bodies.
Pictures are from South Norwood Stands With Grenfell march on November 14, 2018
It seems unlikely that there will ever be justice for the victims and their families or that any of the people or companies and other organisations responsible will ever be brought to trial. Probably at most there will be a few minor cases resulting in some fairly inconsequential fines.
Of course there have been some changes, with the similar cladding on some other towers being replaced by less flammable alternative, although there are still buildings with this dangerous cladding.
It didn’t take long for independent experts to produce extensive reports into the causes of the fire and publish these, and nothing that years of inquiry have produced adds much more than minor details and an increased list of those culpable. At one protest a few months after the fire we were told of a similar fire in Japan where those responsible were in court a matter of weeks after the disaster.
We also saw a concerted attempt in the first phase of the inquiry to push blame for the deaths onto the fire service, which was over-stressed due to cuts and which had been prevented from doing many of the things recommended in the report by a government programme of ‘reducing red tape’ in health and safety and building regulations which led those responsible only too literally get away with murder.
Jane Nicholl and Ian Bone
An earlier fire in Southwark had led to an inquest which had identified some of these problems and the coroner had made a number of recommendations, most of which had not been implemented.
What is clear is that on the night of the fire, firefighters had acted with incredible bravery despite lacking some essential equipment – such as the long ladders that had to be brought in from Surrey. And that as they were not aware of the conditions in this tower and some other blocks they had not realised until too late that the fire measures that should have contained the fire in the flat where it had started would not work.
A few weeks later there was a similar incident in a council block in East London which was contained and there was no loss of life. If Grenfell had been properly inspected and maintained the same would have been true, but it had been turned into a firebomb.
The march on Wednesday 14th November 2018 in South Norwood was prompted by a disgusting video being posted of a cardboard Grenfell tower being burnt by Conservative club members at a bonfire party in the area. It was a hateful video that shocked the nation by its callous treatment of a distaster that killed so many.
The South Norwood Tourist Board – and unofficial community group which has enriched the area by converting waste areas into public gardens and promoting local community events – organised a march to show solidarity with Grenfell, with several hundreds of local residents marching through the streets at the same time as the monthly silent march of remembrance in Notting Hill on the 14th of every month.
Those taking part included several former residents of Grenfell Tower and some who lost friends in the tragic fire, and several came with a Grenfell United banner to support South Norwood’s demonstration of solidarity. Leading members of the SNTB include Jane Nicholl and her partner Ian Bone of Class War. Ian had lived in Grenfell Tower when he first moved to London and it was from there that the first issued of Class War’s magazine were produced.
A relative of Sandra Ruiz of Grenfell United died in Grenfell Tower
Some shops along the route were decorated in support of Grenfell, and after the final speeches there was very welcome free hot soup provided by the Portland Arms pub.
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.
Land Justice, Hizb Ut-Tahrir & Grenfell. Protests in London on 14th April 2018 calling for Land Justice, against Turkey’s support of Assad in Syria and ten months after the Grenfell fire.
The Landlords’ Game – Mayfair, Belgravia & Brompton
I photographed a tour of London’s wealthiest areas led by the Land Justice Network which reminded us that land ownership in Britain is one of the most unequal in the world, both in rural areas and in cities.
This unequal ownership of land is the basis of our class system and the aggregation of wealth and inequality that have led to our present crisis levels of homelessness and degradation. Largely beginning with the Norman conquest, the battles over land have continued over the centuries, with the enclosure of common land and the current redevelopment of public land, particularly council estates, as private housing for the wealthy.
The tour began in Mayfair, where the land is largely owned by the Duke of Westminster, along with much more of the London borough, although the family’s Grosvenor Group Limited has diversified and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosvenor_Group according to Wikipedia also owns properties in other parts of Britain and Ireland, Canada, the United States, Australia, the Asia Pacific region and parts of Europe.
British Virgin Islands is an offshore tax haven where 23,000 properties in England and Wales are registered as a tax scam
From a rally at its meeting point in Brown Hart Gardens where there were songs and speeches by the Land Justice Network, the Landworkers Alliance, the tour including activists from Class War and the Revolutionary Communist Group marched to Grosvenor Square where we listed to a surprisingly lucid account of the anti-Vietnam war protest there on 27th October 1968. I think I was there too, but other than a vague recollection of wildly charging police horses and panic can remember little – and in those days I didn’t even have a camera that worked.
We moved off, stopping briefly at a house known to have been left empty for around 15 years, one of many such empty properties in a city with a huge housing shortage to call for councils to be able to levy truly punitive council tax or requisition long-term empty properties.
A short distance along the road we stopped at ‘Grouse House’ owned by Odey Asset Management whose owner Crispin Odey formed ‘You Forgot the Birds’ to oppose RSPB who want to stop the killing of birds for what is wrongly called sport.
There was a speech by Private Eye journalist Richard Brooks who with his colleague Christian Eriksson set about untangling the great offshore corporate web that covers the country – and you can download his report Tax Havens – Selling England By The Offshore Pound from the Private Eye web site.
Kat from the RCG (Revolutionary Communist Group) also spoke, reminding us that the CIty of London is a huge3 tax haven and the money laundering capital of the world.
The tour continue to Park Lane, where there was a short protest outside estate agent Foxtons which sells and rents some of the most expensive property in London, and Class War were prominent in pointing out that both the Tory government and the Labour local authorities have relied on estate agents to direct their housing strategies.
The tour stopped again on Park Lane outside the Grosvenor House Hotel, the venue for the notorious annual Property Developers Awards before crossing into Hyde Park, open to the public since 1637, but where we were reminded of the battles to make many other parks public, and how now many have only been saved by the growth of groups of volunteer ‘Friends’. We also heard a plea for more free public toilets. Many were closed in the 1980s because of a ‘gay scare’ and others such as those at Hyde Park Corner now charge for use – 50p a visit here.
Across Knightsbridge we walked along one of the most expensive streets in Britain, Grosvenor Crescent to a statue of the first Marquess of Westminster on the corner of Belgrave Square, which has a plaque stating the family came here with William the Conqueror. He divided out the conquered land and many great estates date from then, though the Grosvenor Estate holdings in London came to them when 3rd Baronet Sir Thomas Grosvenor married Mary Davies, the heiress to the 500 acre Manor of Ebury in 1677. He was 21 at the time, but she was only 12. The estate, then largely swamps later became Mayfair, Park Lane and Belgravia.
A left the tour here for a few minutes to photograph the Hizb Ut-Tahrir protest outside the Turkish Embassy, but rejoined it later at the final rally in Cadogan Square, part of the 93 acres of the Cadogan Estate which includes the wealthiest parts of Kensington & Chelsea. Much of the money which enabled Sir Hans Sloane to buy the Manor of Chelsea came from African slave labour on sugar estates in Jamaica. His daughter Elizabeth Sloane married Charles Cadogan in 1712.
Hizb Ut-Tahrir protest against Turkey – Turkish Embassy, Belgrave Square
Hizb Ut-Tahrir Britain, Sunni Muslims who call for the restoration of the Muslim caliphate which whose armies conquered much of the Middle East in 632-661CE, were protesting against Turkish complicity in handing Syria back to Assad in accordance with colonial interests and calling for Muslims to support the brave people of Palestine who “are raising their voices to speak out and protest against the illegal occupation, as they are mercilessly killed by the Zionist regime.”
Women were strictly segregated from men at the protest and some stewards were unhappy for me to photograph them.
Their criticism of Turkey goes back to the 1922 abolition of the Ottoman state and the Turkish recognition of the Zionist occupation of Palestine in 1949, and they accuse President Erdogan of strengthening Turkish military and economic ties with Israel. They claim the Turkish state is a secular state “whose role is to protect the colonialist’s interests in our lands, defending and strengthening our enemies who murder us in Syria and Palestine” and call on “Muslims to join us to STAND, STRUGGLE AND SACRIFICE FOR PALESTINE.”
Grenfell – 10 months on – Kensington Town Hall
A large crowd was assembling at Kensington Town Hall for the monthly silent walk marking 10 months since the disaster. They hold Kensington and Chelsea Council responsible for the tragedy and for failing to deal effectively with is aftermath, with many survivors still not properly rehoused.
Five years later a public inquiry is still proceeding at a snail’s pace, and there have been no prosecutions of those responsible for approving and installing the highly dangerous cladding on the tower block, for cutting costs, for failing to install the cladding properly, for governments cutting out essential safety regulations which their friends in the building industry thought were ‘red tape’ hampering profits and it looks unlikely if there will ever be justice. Instead we have seen politicians trying to blame the residents for not leaving the building and almost entirely unjustified criticism of the fire service.
There were some speeches, poetry and music before the silent march began, and then a very noisy protest by bikers from the Ace Cafe including Muslim bikers Deen Riders and others taking part in a United Ride 4 Grenfell, from the Ace Cafe on the North Circular Rd, riding to Parliament and then coming to Kensington Town Hall.
The long silent walk towards Grenfell Tower began immediately after the bikers left, and I followed it for a short distance before turning away and leaving to make my way home.
Today it is four and a half years after the terrible fire at Grenfell Tower which began early in the morning of 14th June 2017, killing 72 people and injuring over 70 others. And many or all of those who escaped will suffer from both physical and mental effects of the night for the rest of their lives, as too will many of the firefighters and other emergency workers.
The pictures here come from the monthly slow and silent walk to demand justice and remembering those killed at Grenfell Tower six months after the fire on Thursday 14th December 2017.
The fire was an event waiting to happen, and warnings of the danger by residents and neighbours had been ignored by the building managers. The reasons the fire spread as it did were almost immediately obvious and rapidly published including the report by Architects For Social Housing, The Truth about Grenfell Tower which came out around five weeks later.
Rather than take action against those responsible, a public inquiry was set up, and began three months later. It’s main effect has been to delay justice, and its first sessions and report were largely devoted in trying to shift blame on to London Fire Brigade, whose efforts on the night had showed incredible determination and bravery.
Cuts in the London Fire Service made by Boris Johnson when he was London Mayor had left them both understaffed and under-equipped, while earlier privatisation of some of the fire inspection and certification allowed dangerous conditions of buildings including this to go unchecked. The LFB did not have a suitable fire engine for dealing with the high rise fire, and one had to be brought from Surrey.
Governments of both parties over the years had weakened the regulations and inspections in the name of ‘cutting red tape’, responding to lobbying from the building industry, which allowed both highly flammable cladding to be use, and also for it to be incorrectly installed without essential safety gaps.
With tall blocks that meet proper safety standards a fire like this which began with a faulty refrigerator in a single flat would have been contained within that single flat. Many such fires have taken place and been contained, sometimes with most other residents of the building being completely unaware of them. Had Grenfell not been wrongly fitted with unsuitable cladding this would have been the case here, though there were also other problems particularly with the stairways and dry riser that made escape and fighting the fire much more dangerous.
Had the LFB been aware of the problems they were to face things would have been very different (and they would have called for the building to be shut down and the faults rectified.) But they arrived at the fire ignorant of the many defects, and were met with a situation which was for them unprecedented. With hindsight it is possible to say they could have made a decision to go against all their training on fires in tall blocks and try to evacuate the building earlier, but I think it unfair to blame them for not doing so.
The public inquiry continues, and has shed some more light on the details of the crimes that led to those 72 deaths, but seems mainly to have been taken up by those eager to shift responsibility from their actions to others.
Tonight, 14th December 2021, four and a half years later, another silent walk will take place, gathering at Kensington Town Hall at 6pm to start at 6.30pm. This is the first for 18 months due to Covid. The invitation from Grenfell United states:
“We invite you to join us on our Silent Walk in our campaign for Justice.
To show those responsible we are not going anywhere until we have real Change and Justice. So another Grenfell never happens again.”
Seven years ago on Saturday 22 November 2014 I photographed four very different events.
Occupy Democracy at Supreme Court
Occupy Democracy activists had camped out overnight in front of the Supreme Court, watched by police who had fenced in almost all of the grassed areas in Parliament Square to prevent them being occupied. The activists were hoping to hold two days of workshops there, but things had not started when I left after taking pictures.
Justice for Shahzad & Shama
Pakistani Christians and others were protesting opposite Downing St calling for justice for the brutal murder in Pakistan of Shahzad Masih and Shahzad Masih , bondedlabourers at a brick kiln, who were falsely accused of burning pages of the Quran, attacked by a Muslim mob, tortured and burnt alive.
There are around 4 million Christians in Pakistan, a little under 2% of the population and they face extreme persecution, with those who have converted from Islam at greatest danger. Christians are treated as second-class citizens, discriminated against in employment, where they largely do the lowest status jobs, and girls are at risk of abduction and rape, sometimes being forced to convert to Islam and marry their attackers. Christians are often accused of blasphemy, as in this case to settle civil disputes, with those accused being attacked or killed by Islamic extremist groups, whose criminal acts are largely ignored by the authorities.
Class War Griff Rhys Jones Mansion Tax
Class War went to the £7m Fitzroy Square home of Griff Rhys Jones who said he would leave the country if Labour levieda mansion tax, telling him to “f**k off now”, offering to pay the fare. Class War’s manifesto for the 2015 general election includes a 50% mansion tax.
No one came to answer the door when they put their leaflet through and after a few minutes making their presence felt outside, the walked around to the south side of the square to protest outside the outside the home of Guy Ritchie, another millionaire objector to a mansion tax. They put a few stickers on other places around the square, including the Magistrates Association and the gates to the private garden in the centre of the square, returned for another short protest outside Griff Rhys Jones’s house before retiring to the pub. Unfortunately I couldn’t join them as I had another event to photograph in Brixton.
Still No Justice for Ricky Bishop
Ricky Bishop, a fit young black man, died from unexplained injuries hours after being taken to Brixton Police Station on 22 Nov 2001. Family and supporters call it a modern day lynching and march annually to remember him and call for justice.
The marchers met up at Windrush Square and then marched slowly through the centre of Brixton to the police station, where a tree outside has been adopted as a remembrance tree for Ricky Bishop and the others killed there by police.
At the tree there were speeches, including a detailed and forceful presentation by Marcia Rigg of the battle she and others faced to get any proper investigation into the death there of her brother Sean Rigg in August 2008.
These two are not the only young black men to have died at the hands of Brixton police, but so far there has been no police officer bought to justice from the crimes they committed. The only real action by the police has been to remove all of the photographs and momentos placed by some of the families from the tree in front of the police station.
