It’s taken 31 years, but the Metropolitan Police have finally published a secret internal report showing that police officers killed an anti-fascist protester in 1979.

Blair Peach, a 33 year old teacher originally from New Zealand, was on a demo against the National Front in Southall, London, where he was beaten to death by police officers. This has been covered up for decades.

The killing was carried out by members of the Special Patrol Group, which in 1987 was renamed the Territorial Support Group because of its notorious reputation. However, despite the name change, the violence has continued up to the present day, with the same unit being responsible for the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests last year.

The 1979 demo followed a provocative meeting held by the National Front in the middle of a predominantly Sikh community. It was attended by 2,500 cops, and serious violence ensued. Another protester, Clarence Baker of the reggae band Misty in Roots, was in a coma for 5 months following it. The internal investigation by the Met found that a group of SPG officers had knocked Blair Peach unconscious in a side street, and he died the next day of head injuries. Fourteen witnesses gave evidence that they had seen the attack. The report argues that he was probably killed by a blow from an unauthorised weapon, such as a lead weighted cosh or police radio.

The report narrowed down the officers responsible to six who arrived at the scene in a van. The report named a suspect thought to be responsible, but the name was redacted. The officers involved conspired to cover each others backs and hide the fact they were at the scene, refused to take part in ID parades, shaved off facial hair or grew it so they wouldn’t conform to witness descriptions, and dry cleaned their uniforms before they could be subjected to forensic investigation.

The investigation also found a huge stash of unauthorised weapons in the SPG headquarters, including various illegal truncheons and knives, two crowbars, a whip, a 3 foot wooden stave, and a lead-weighted leather stick. An officer was discovered attempting to dispose of a metal cosh. Another officer was discovered to be a Nazi supporter.

The coroner involved in the death of Blair Peach, Dr. John Burton, carried out a propaganda campaign about the case, arguing before the inquest had even finished that there was no way an officer had killed him. He said witnesses’ evidence was “fabrication” because they were “totally committed members of the Socialist Workers’ Party”, and he said Sikh witnesses “did not have experience of the English system” to give reliable evidence. He also fought to try and prevent the inquest having a jury, claiming it would “be hijacked by the extreme left.” In 1980, the inquest returned a verdict of “misadventure”, and no police officers were held responsible.

Peach’s partner, Celia Stubbs, has campaigned for years for justice and a full public inquiry. Her fight finally met with some success last year when the Met agreed to publish the report, which was reviewed by the Crown Prosecution Service. However, the CPS advised that there was no reason to proceed with a prosecution now, and so the officers responsible will once again be able to get away with murder.

The names of the officers involved are blanked out by the report, however they have been established by campaigners by looking at supporting material. The inspector in charge of the vehicle was Alan Murray, who resigned from the force in protest at the internal report, and is today a lecturer in “corporate social responsibility” (!) at Sheffield Uni.

Throughout the 80s the SPG remained notorious for violence, their reputation being mocked on comedy programmes like ‘Not the Nine O’ Clock News’ and ‘The Young Ones.’ The Metropolitan Police Commissioner at the time, Sir David McNee, defended the actions of the SPG to a black journalist, saying:

“I understand the concern of your people. But if you keep off the streets of London and behave yourselves you won’t have the SPG to worry about.”

The duties of the SPG were transferred to the newly formed Territorial Support Group in 1987, but the violence continued. Some officers are ex-military personnel, and they have been accused by other police as looking for confrontations and violence. A few examples include:

-In 1997 a man was beaten by officers from the TSG in what was described as an “outrageous display of brutality”, which only stopped when the man pretended to be unconscious. The man was charged with assault and threatening behaviour over the incident but was cleared after photographs of his injuries showed the officers had lied about the case under oath. After the man’s acquittal the officers went on trial accused of assault in 1999, but where later cleared.

-In 2003, six officers of the TSG performed what a judge called a “serious, gratuitous and prolonged” assault on a terrorist suspect, Babar Ahmed, an IT worker who was not subsequently charged with any offence. The officers involved had already been the subject of as many as 60 complaints about unwarranted assaults. A number of mail sacks containing these complaints were somehow lost. The accusations were investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission but they were found to be “unsubstantiated”. No charges were bought against the officers and five of the six were still members of the TSG in 2009. Babar Ahmed was later awarded £60,000 compensation, by the High Court, for the assault.

In 2004 Babar Ahmed was re-arrested after the US requested his extradition, claiming he was a supporter of terrorism, which he strenuously denies. If extradited, he will face life in a US Supermax prison. He currently holds the distinction of being the person held the longest ever without charge in the UK, as he has been in prison for 5 years.

-In 2005 a young Kurdish man recorded an officer on his mobile phone telling him “If you say one more fucking word, I’ll smash your fucking Arab face in” after he was stopped near Paddington Green police station. The officer was suspended but denied the charge.

-In 2007 several officers were prosecuted for racially aggravated assault, racial abuse and misconduct in public office, after a police van driver acted as a whistleblower to uncover their racial abuse of three men on a street near Paddington police station. The men were insulted, grabbed around the neck and had their testicles pulled. The police applied to have reporting of the trial restricted. One of the officers, a former Royal Marine who was also implicated in the case of Babar Ahmed, was last year cleared of all charges and returned to work at the TSG.

The most notorious case of TSG violence is of course last year’s killing of Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper vendor who was not even part of a protest. He died at the G20 protests after being hit and pushed to the ground by officers. Despite video evidence, over 1 year on no officer has been charged, and Ian Tomlinson’s family have seen no justice.

Footage obtained by the Guardian of the assault that caused the death of Ian Tomlinson

What all this reminds us is that the police are not a neutral force. There are situations in everyday life where many of us need the help of the police, but when it comes to politics, officers of units like the SPG/TSG (whose specific role includes policing demos) know which side they’re on. In London, the police have been shown time and again to be filled with violent racists. The stories above should give anyone who think arming police with tasers is a good idea second thoughts.

The death of Blair Peach is also a timely warning about the way we conduct the fight against the far right today. In the recent demos against the Scottish Defence League, some people, like SNP Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, celebrated the police doing the job of keeping the racists off the streets. But those of us who know the police can just as easily turn their force against us also know that we can’t rely on them to do our work for us. Keeping our streets and communities Nazi free is a job only anti-fascists can do reliably.

Dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson tells Blair Peach’s story

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.