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Damages for Frank Crichlow

01 November 1992

Black community activist, Frank Crichlow, 60, has accepted £50,000 and costs (believed to be around £70,000) to settle his action for false imprisonment, assault and battery and malicious prosecution, from the Metropolitan Police. It is one of the largest settlements and resulted from a raid on the Mangrove restaurant and community centre in All Saints Road, Notting Hill, west London in May 1988 in which Crichlow accused the police of planting heroin on him.

During the raid Crichlow was kept face-down on the floor for twenty minutes with two policemen sitting on his back and another with his foot on his head. Police officers claimed that cocaine and cannabis had been found on the premises and Crichlow was charged and remanded in custody in Wormwood Scrubs prison for five weeks.

In June 1989 he was acquitted of all charges despite the fact that 36 police officers gave evidence against him. After the trial he began his action against the police.

Ever since Crichlow opened the Mangrove restaurant in the late 1960s it has been systematically targetted by the police. Repeated police raids led to local demonstrations and following a picket of Notting Hill police station during the 1970s, nine black people - including Crichlow - were arrested. The "Mangrove 9" appeared at the Old Bailey in a trial that lasted for two months before they were acquitted.

In one month in 1987, during Operation Trident which coincided with the re-opening of the Mangrove, 4,000 police officers were stationed in the area, with 80 along the All Saints Road. It was only a few months after this that Crichlow, along with 53 others, was arrested.

Following the award Mr Crichlow said: "This was the ugliest experience in my life...I think the officers involved should be charged and they should be thrown out of the service. If this sort of policeman is allowed to stay, all of us - black and white people - have no hope in hell."

Independent 13.10.92; Guardian 13.10.92; Voice 13.10.92.