UK: Race policing and the CPS (feature)
01 July 1997
On 2 October an inquest jury found that Gambian asylum-seeker Ibrahima Sey was unlawfully killed following his arrest in March 1996 and being sprayed with CS gas. The DPP will be under enormous pressure to prosecute the officers involved.
At the end of July, the first ever High Court challenge to a decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Dame Barbara Mills, not to prosecute police officers involved in unlawful killings ended in triumph. On 23 July, the DPP (who heads the Crown Prosecution Service), and the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) admitted failing to give proper consideration to the evidence in the decision not to prosecute or discipline any officers for their part in the death of Shiji Lapite. The following day, an identical admission was made about the death of Richard O'Brien. And within a few more days, the High Court ruled that the decision not to prosecute officers found by a civil court to have been involved in torturing Kenneth Treadaway was similarly flawed.
Nigerian-born Shiji Lapite was killed on 16 December 1994. He was stopped by police in Stoke Newington for "acting suspiciously"; 20 minutes later he was dead, his face and body covered in bruises. A pathologist counted 45 separate injuries, including a fracture of his voice box, which killed him. An officer admitted kicking him in the head as hard as he could, claiming he was the most violent prisoner he had ever encountered, but officers restraining him had only very superficial injuries. In January 1996 an inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing. Despite the verdict, the DPP decided that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute any officer involved in his death, and the PCA took a similar decision in relation to disciplinary charges (see Statewatch, vol 5 no 4, vol 6 nos 1 & 4).
Irish-born Richard O'Brien was killed on 4 April 1994 within minutes of being arrested by police at a dance in south London. He was found to have 31 separate injuries. The last words his wife heard him say were "I can't breathe, let me up, you win." An officer retorted: "We always win." In November 1995 an inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing; the DPP decided that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.
Kenneth Treadaway won ?50,000 damages in the High Court after a judge was satisfied that West Midlands Serious Crime Squad officers had put plastic bags over his head and suffocated him to unconsciousness to obtain a confession to robbery in 1982. The confession he signed to stop the torture resulted in a 13-year sentence, but his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1996 when the Crown did not seek to uphold it. The DPP refused to prosecute for perjury and assault, saying there was insufficient evidence.
The three cases represent the tip of an iceberg of apparently blatant police brutality going unpunished despite evidence which convinced a judge and two juries. The two cases which resulted in death point up most starkly the apparent failure of the CPS to do its job. A civil judge or jury may decide "on the balance of probabilities" that an assault took place, ie, that it was more likely than not that it did. But for an unlawful killing verdict to be entered at an inquest, a jury must be satisfied "beyond reasonable doubt", of the same standard of proof required to convict in a criminal trial. Despite this, it is unheard of for an unlawful killing verdict against police or prison officers to be followed by criminal charges; a few weeks after the inquest verdict the ritual announcement comes from the DPP: "There is not enough evidence to warrant prosecution."
Finally, in July, the families of three victims of apparent brutality, and their lawyers, said: "Why not?" The result has been a kind of implosion at the CPS, as reviews of evidence have been found to be partial and descriptions of the procedure in High Court affidavits misleading. Evidence disclosed in the O'Brien and Lapite case