Skip Navigation | Sheffield IMC | UK IMC | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

UK Indymedia UK Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia

Blair Peach: After 31 years Met police say 'sorry' for their role in his killing

underclassrising.net | 28.04.2010 03:10 | Sheffield

A former police inspector tonight denied involvement in the notorious killing of the anti-racist protester Blair Peach, after a report released earlier in the day suggested he may have been the officer who struck the "fatal blow". Alan Murray, who is now a Sheffield University lecturer but was a 29-year-old Metropolitan police inspector in 1979, said he was the victim of a bungled investigation into Peach's death. "I did not kill Blair Peach. Of that I am certain," he said.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/apr/27/blair-peach-killing-police

Its been 31 year and four days since Blair Peach was killed by a policeman. They know that it was down to a police van with six SPG policeman in it but they don’t know which and they aren’t saying. You can bet your bottom dollar that if it was the other way around and a policeman had been killed and six protesters had been identified it would not have stopped there. You only have to go forward a few years to the Broadwater Farm riots when PC Blakelock was killed. They got their men.

In March 1987 three men, Winston Silcott, Mark Braithwaite and Engin Raghip were convicted of the murder of PC Blakelock After the trial it was revealed that Winston Silcott had, in the meantime, been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the earlier murder of another man, Tony Smith. On 25 November 1991 the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions amid allegations of fabrication of evidence. Mark Braithwaite and Engin Raghip were released. Winston Silcott remained in prison for the murder of Smith, being released on licence in 2003 after serving eighteen years. In 1994 two of the investigating detectives stood trial, and were acquitted of fabricating evidence. In 2003, police announced that new evidence had come to light. Subsequently the garden of a house in Tottenham was searched with an undisclosed item being found. In 2004 PC Blakelock’s overalls were retrieved from Scotland Yard’s Crime Museum for a new forensics examination, after exhaustive inquires except after several years it turns out he didn’t do it. I am not sure whether to be more depressed by our police service’s dishonesty or incompetence. I hope to live long enough to read the papers in the year 2040 when we will hear similar statements about Ian Tomlinson.

The cops got away with murder. They finally admitted it. The police behaviour that murdered Blair Peach helped fuel the revolt and riots of the early 1980s. People had had enough. The SUS laws – how appropriate that a film version of Barrie Keefe’s 1979 play Sus has just been made into a searing film – were a major reason behind the riots.

The death of Ian Tomlinson suggests unequivocally that the Met is at least as bad as it was in 1979. At least Blair Peach was actually a protester … poor Ian was just trying to get home.

The lack of a prosecution for the death of Blair Peach is perfectly mirrored in the continued dithering of the CPS in the Ian Tomlinsoncase. The rioters who put the windows in at the RBS branch at the G20 went to jail months ago … the copper who killed Ian is suspended on full-pay, and may never even appear in court.

The attempted cover-up by the Met with regard to the death of Ian Tomlinson is perhaps even more worrying than the obsfucation that Cass met in investigating Blair Peach’s death … the misleading press release, the faulty cause of death, the many untruths fed to Ian’s family and the media must have been sanctioned at a senior level.

The top brass can tell us how much they’ve changed until they’re blue in the face … but our experience on the streets and in the kettle speaks the truth.

Despite what police said, many under oath, Jean Charles de Menezes did not jump the barrier at Stockwell tube and run to the train, the police did not identify themselves as armed police, and de Menezes did not move towards them.

What other conclusion can we draw, other than such claims were part of an attempt to evade responsibility for killing someone? And how many police were convicted of any wrongdoing?

We were told Ian Tomlinson had ‘no contact’ with police before he collapsed, and had died of a heart attack. And, like Jean Charles de Menezes , that the crucial CCTV cameras weren’t working.

And we can guess from the casual demeanour of the attack on Tomlinson that it was commonplace at the G20. How many officers have – as is their duty – handed themselves in or reported fellow officers for excessive force that day? How many heads do we think will roll for it? The same as for de Menezes and Blair Peach.

 http://wp.me/s5Xdy-3198

underclassrising.net

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Blair Peach

28.04.2010 07:15

"At least Blair Peach was actually a protester … poor Ian was just trying to get home."
And poor Blair was just standing up against racism.

anon


thought for the day

28.04.2010 09:11

Duncan Campbell's article in the Guardian quotes police commander Cass as emphasising that the crowd was "rebellious" and noting that "Archbold, the criminal law bible, states in paragraph 2528 of its 38th edition that "in case of riot or rebellious assembly the officers endeavouring to disperse the riot are justified in killing them at common law if they cannot otherwise be suppressed."

so there it is...

Jack De Manio


Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Sheffield Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Sheffield [navigation.actions2016]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2015]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2014]

NATO 2014

Sheffield Actions 2013

G8 2013

Sheffield Actions 2012

Workfare

Sheffield Actions 2011

2011 Census Resistance
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Occupy Everywhere

Sheffield Actions 2010

Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands

Sheffield Actions 2009

COP15 Climate Summit 2009
G20 London Summit
Guantánamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
University Occupations for Gaza

Sheffield Actions 2008

2008 Days Of Action For Autonomous Spaces
Campaign against Carmel-Agrexco
Climate Camp 2008
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Smash EDO
Stop Sequani Animal Testing
Stop the BNP's Red White and Blue festival

Sheffield Actions 2007

Climate Camp 2007
DSEi 2007
G8 Germany 2007
Mayday 2007
No Border Camp 2007

Sheffield Actions 2006

April 2006 No Borders Days of Action
Art and Activism Caravan 2006
Climate Camp 2006
Faslane
French CPE uprising 2006
G8 Russia 2006
Lebanon War 2006
March 18 Anti War Protest
Mayday 2006
Oaxaca Uprising
Refugee Week 2006
Rossport Solidarity
SOCPA
Transnational Day of Action Against Migration Controls
WSF 2006

Sheffield Actions 2005

DSEi 2005
G8 2005
WTO Hong Kong 2005

Sheffield Actions 2004

European Social Forum
FBI Server Seizure
May Day 2004
Venezuela

Sheffield Actions 2003

Bush 2003
DSEi 2003
Evian G8
May Day 2003
No War F15
Saloniki Prisoner Support
Thessaloniki EU
WSIS 2003

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech