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UK: Metropolitan Police and the killing of Blair Peach in 1979

01 April 2010

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INQUEST: Press release (pdf) plus link to full-text of report.

Celia Stubbs, partner of Blair Peach, said:

"This report totally vindicates what we have always believed – that Blair was killed by one of six officers from Unit 1 of the Special Patrol Group whose names have been in the public domain over all these years: Insp Murray, PC White, PC Richardson, PC Scottow, PC Freestone and PS Lake. That serves only to emphasise that there can be no excuse for the way in which the writer of the report, like the police generally, sought to criminalise the many protestors including Blair at the demonstration against the National Front election meeting."

Deborah Coles, Co-Director of INQUEST, said:

"The family, friends and community have waited for 31 years for some public recognition and acknowledgement that the police were responsible for Blair’s death. We call upon Sir Paul Stephenson to publicly acknowledge for the first time that a Metropolitan Police officer was responsible the fatal truncheon blow that killed him. The whole police investigation into what happened on 23 April 1979 was clearly designed as an exercise in managing the fallout from the events of that iconic day in Southall, to exonerate police violence in the face of legitimate public protest. The echoes of that exercise sound across the decades to the events of the G20 protest and the death of Ian Tomlinson in 2009."

Footnote: Blair Peach was killed by the member of the Met's Special Patrol Group (SPG) in Southall at a massive protest against the National Front in April 1979. The then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, David McNee, said at a press conference on 14 June 1979 introducing his annual report:

"If you keep off the streets of London and behave yourself you won't have to worry about the SPG"

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