Never Forget Blair Peach

[Jeevan]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/andrew-alderson/7629540/Police-braced-for-criticism-over-new-Blair-Peach-death-disclosures.html

Police braced for criticism over new Blair Peach death disclosures

Highly damaging revelations that will implicate former Metropolitan Police officers in the death in 1979 of schoolteacher Blair Peach will be published this week.

By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter

Published: 8:45PM BST 24 Apr 2010

Highly damaging revelations that will implicate former Metropolitan Police officers in the death in 1979 of schoolteacher Blair Peach will be published this week.

Blair Peach

The force will publish some 2,000 pages of documents relating to Mr Peach who died after he was hit over the head during a demonstration in London.

They include a previously secret police report drawn up months after Mr Peach's death which concluded that the blow which killed him was likely to have been struck by a police officer on duty.

The New Zealand-born anti-racism campaigner was knocked unconscious during the demonstration against the National Front in Southall, west London, on April 23, 1979. He died the next day.

Six officers have been pinpointed as the ones likely to have struck Mr Peach but they have all been unable – or unwilling – to identify the guilty party. All the men have since retired from the force.

The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) review of the case has concluded there can be no charges over the death of Mr Peach, 33. The CPS ruling has paved the way for the Metropolitan Police to publish the previously confidential documents, which one senior source said will be "uncomfortable reading for the Met".

Sir Paul Stephenson decided shortly after being appointed as Metropolitan Police Commissioner in January 2009 that – in the interests of openness and transparency – he wanted to publish the reports relating to Mr Peach's death. Sources say he wanted to draw a line under one of the most unsavoury episodes in the history of the Met.

However, before publishing the documents, Sir Paul wanted to ensure that there was no likelihood of a prosecution so he asked Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, for a CPS review of the case.

This has concluded that without new evidence, or a confession, there is no realistic possibility that charges can be brought. A press briefing is being arranged for this week when previously unpublished reports will be made public for the first time. It is understood that hundreds of pages have been redacted to protect the identities of individual police officers involved in the inquiry.

Mr Peach's death has been likened to that of Ian Tomlinson, 47, a newspaper vendor, who died during the G20 demonstrations on April 1, 2009. Video evidence suggested that he was struck by a baton-wielding police officer and the CPS is currently examining a file on his death.

Critics of the Met are likely to conclude that there has been a conspiracy of silence among officers to protect the man responsible for Mr Peach's death. Eleven witnesses said they had seen one or more members of the Met's Special Patrol Group (SPG) strike Mr Peach. It was suspected that he been hit by a rubberised police radio or a similar object.

An inquest jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure in May 1980 but there was widespread criticism of the way the late Dr John Burton, the coroner, handled the hearing and the lack of sympathy he seemed to show towards Mr Peach's death and the actions of peace campaigners.

At the April 1979 demonstration, fighting began when thousands of protesters gathered to demonstrate against a National Front campaign meeting. In the confrontation that followed, more than 40 people, including 21 police, were injured, and 300 were arrested. Bricks and bottles were hurled at police, who described the rioting as some of the most violent ever seen in the capital.

A pathologist report said Mr Peach died from injuries to his skull that were likely to have been caused by a lead weighted rubber cosh or hosepipe filled with lead shot. When Mr police investigators raided officers' lockers at the SPG headquarters, they uncovered a stash of unauthorised weapons, including a metal cosh, but this was ruled out as the weapon that killed the peace campaigner.

Mr Peach's funeral was attended by some 10,000 people, and he became a hero among the Sikh community, some of whom had been targeted in the 1970s by the National Front.

After the inquest verdict, Mr Peach's long-term girlfriend, Celia Stubbs, campaigned for many years for a public inquiry into his death. However, this was ruled out in April 1999 by Paul Boateng, then the Home Office minister. Mr Boateng said too much time had elapsed to hold a worthwhile inquiry into what he called a "tragedy".

The most interesting reading this week is likely to be the report drawn up by Commander John Cass just months after Mr Peach's death. Mr Cass is believed to have concluded that an "unauthorised weapon", including possibly a police radio, was used to strike Mr Peach.

Another senior officer, Ian Quinn, conducted a review of the case in 1999 and this too is expected to be made public this week.

Sir Paul, who was originally Acting Commissioner after the resignation of Sir Ian Blair in September 2008 before getting the job permanently four months later, has tried to bring greater openness to the Met. As Deputy Commissioner of the force, Sir Paul was a driving force behind the decision to publish the 832-page report by Lord Stevens, the former Met Commissioner, into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in a car crash in Paris in August 1997. Again, he favoured openness and he hoped the report being made public in December 2006 would quash conspiracy theories over her death.

The 23-member Metropolitan Police Authority, which scrutinises the Met and the work of the Commissioner, will also welcome the release of the documents.

Alan Murray, a former Scotland Yard inspector who as head of the SPG in 1979, has said he believes Mr Peach was either unlawfully killed or murdered, but he does not believe his men were responsible.

Mr Murray, who in 1979 was a 29-year-old inspector, resigned shortly after Mr Peach's death and is now a university lecturer. He claimed the Met's investigation – which focused on those SPG officers near Mr Peach when he collapsed – was flawed. "I resigned because of the way the investigation was conducted," he said. "It is a matter of abiding regret that Blair Peach was killed that day."

[Southall Youth]