The death of Joy Gardner (1)
01 January 1991
The death of Joy Gardner
artdoc August=1993
On Tuesday 28 July police officers from the Metropolitan Police
SO1(3) extradition branch raided the home of Joy Gardner, a black
woman, to enforce a deportation order. Four days later she was
officially pronounced dead by Whittington hospital in north
London.
Five police officers and an immigration official arrived at
her flat in Crouch End, London early in the morning. Joy Gardner
was at home with her five year old son. There was a struggle and
the police overpowered her. Her mother Myrna Simpson, who has
lived in the UK for 33 years, told a packed public meeting that:
`They taped up her mouth. They taped her feet. They sat on her
stomach and damaged her kidneys, her liver and her brain'. The
police had also put a body belt (a leather belt with attached
handcuffs) on Joy Gardner to restrain her. Myrna Simpson also
described what happened in the words of Joy Gardner's five year
old son, Graham: `There was a big fight. Three of them were
sitting on top of mummy, others were kicking her'. Joy Gardner's
mother's view is plainly put:
`The police killed my daughter. They said she collapsed but she
was a healthy woman. They had no need to treat her with such
force. They went in with vengeance in their hearts. It's one law
for black, another for white'.
The time and cause of Joy Gardner's death is a matter of dispute
between the family and the authorities. The ambulance service was
contacted at 8.04 am and arrived at the flat at 8.15 am. An
ambulance service spokesperson said `there was no heart beat and
no sign of any activity from the heart' and it took the
paramedics 25 minutes to revive her pulse. Joy Gardner was taken
to hospital in a coma and put on a life support system, she never
recovered consciousness and died four days later. The family say:
`You cannot be lifeless for so long and live. She was effectively
dead when she arrived at the hospital' and the family described
how when they went to visit her she was covered in bruises and
smelling from decomposition.
The initial Home Office post mortem said that she had died of
kidney failure. A heart specialist told the Police Complaints
Authority that she may have collapsed because `she was in some
way deprived of oxygen'. The specialist identified three possible
reasons for her going into a coma: the tape covered both her nose
and mouth, depriving her of oxygen; she swallowed her tongue
after the gag was put on; or the officer restrained her with such
force she was unable to breath. A post mortem for the family on
10 August showed that she had died from suffocation, this opinion
was agreed by Dr West for the family and three other pathologists
representing the three police officers, the Police Complaints
Authority inquiry and the coroner.
Joy Gardner, aged 40, was from Jamaica and had come to the UK
on a six-months visitors permit in 1987. She was arrested in
1990, one month after marrying here but was released pending
judicial review. This was turned down in 1991. In January 1993
Joy Gardner's solicitor lodged an appeal to stay on compassionate
grounds; she had no family in Jamaica to give support but had her
mother, a half-sister, a half-brother, three uncles, two aunts
and numerous cousins in the UK. At 9.30 am her solicitor, Djemal
Dervish, opened a letter from the Home Office turning down her
appeal, it said: `Arrangements will shortly be made for her
removal to Jamaica'. Mr Dervish said: `As far as she knew her
appeal was still being considered when the police came knocking
on her door'.
Three members of the Met extradition unit, a woman sergeant and
two male constables were suspended from duty and the squad's
involvement in deportations put on hold. This Metropolitan Police
unit, SO1(3) has twenty officers eight of whom, under an
inspector, assist immigration officers carrying out deportation
orders where `resistance or violence was expected' (