Runnymede’s media officer Lester Holloway reflects on his visit to the National Black Police Association conference

I was delighted to be invited to the National Black Police Association conference last week, where I gave a talk, was on a Q&A panel and delivered two workshops. The theme of the AGM was based around media and policing.

Several speakers made reference to their own members who had been on the receiving end of negative and largely untrue or distorted stories about them that had appeared in the national daily papers from anonymous police sources.

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Carol Howard[/caption]

Gurpal Virdi, who was accused of sending race hate mail to himself only to be later exonerated; Ali Dizaei, who was convicted of offences but had many more untrue allegations about him splashed in the papers; and Carol Howard who also faced a smear campaign, amongst many others.

A common theme is BAME officers making allegations of racism against their own force, finding themselves under investigation, and then being subject to character assassination with a welter of claims against them published in the press. 

The key question is how did such stories end up in the papers.

Below-the-waterline briefings, pub conversations and you-scratch-my-back relationships between the media and police lie at the heart of much of this.

The Black Police conference took place in Birmingham, a city where – as a journalist in the black media - I covered the untimely death of Mikey Powell and the subsequent trial of police officers for misfeasance in public office (they were all acquitted).

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Mikey Powell[/caption]

The first I heard of this death was in The Sun newspaper. They reported that a crack addict had died while being arrested. Weeks later it would emerge that no trace of illegal drugs were found in his body.

That tabloid report set the scene by painting the victim in a negative light, and in the eyes of the public partly absolved the arresting officers of blame before the inquest had even begun.

The article did not come from an official police spokesperson, but instead from an anonymous police ‘source’. An untraceable, unofficial tip-off and quote that could not be pinned on the police service itself.

Sadly both the initial newspaper report suggesting the dead man was high on drugs, and the anonymous nature of the police source, are reoccurring themes in several other cases of deaths in custody.

The inquest into Mikey Powell’s death, and subsequent trial of the arresting officers, established that his family called police because Mikey, who had long suffered mental ill health, was having an episode. He had not harmed anyone but was behaving erratically.

When the officers arrived Mikey would not submit to arrest. So they accelerated their police car at him. The metal body of the car was literally their tool of choice to apprehend him. He was then CS sprayed and restrained on the ground where asphyxia played a part in his death.

An inquest found Mikey had been unlawfully killing but a criminal jury later cleared the officers largely on grounds that they were in fear of their own personal safety.

None of the salient facts about Mikey’s arrest were provided to The Sun, even though the anonymous police source probably knew them.

This selective reporting, based on a cosy relationship between journalists and police officers sought to present a story to the public that just wasn’t true.

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Roger Sylvester[/caption]

A very similar story appeared, also in The Sun, about the arrest of Roger Sylvester in Tottenham. Roger was also having a mental episode. Roger was naked outside his own front door. Police arrived and restrained him. He was then taken to a hospital where eight officers pinned him to the floor causing asphyxiation and death.

It was reported in the paper that Roger was a crack addict. Like Mikey, subsequent toxicology tests proved that he had no illegal drugs in his body at the time of his death.

An inquest found unlawful killing but the Crown Prosecution Service did not prosecute and the family lost a long running legal dispute to overturn this decision.

Derek Bennett was also mentally ill. He carried a gun-shaped cigarette lighter on the Angell Town estate in Brixton and was shot dead by police. The picture of the lighter on the ground made front page of the London Evening Standard. In the public’s mind it was case closed; there was the evidence of a gun-shaped object. Surely it was reasonable for the marksman to pull the trigger?

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Derek Bennett[/caption]

Evidence from the inquest proved that the bullets had entered Derek’s back. It was suggested that he was running away at the time. Granted, this did not constitute surrendering and police had shouted warnings, but was it right to shoot a man who was in all probability running away? A jury ruled that he had been lawfully killed in 2001 but feelings in Brixton's black community led to a mini-uprising.

Non-compliance with police, in effect resisting arrest, was probably a factor in all three cases. But inquest juries did not agree that the actions of officers were appropriate.

The public had to wait several months, sometimes years, to hear the full story and gain access to evidence that questioned the initial pro-police account printed in the newspapers at the time. 

An alliance of The Sun, the Police Federation which represents grassroots officers, and the widow of PC Keith Blakelock, who was murdered in the 1985 Broadwater Farm uprising, kept up a media campaign of vilification against Winston Silcott years after he was acquitted of the murder.

Silcott had the conviction quashed in 1991 after forensic tests suggested evidence against him was fabricated by police. However that did not satisfy The Sun who continued to hound his every move for another 14 years.

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Winston Silcott[/caption]

The picture (left) which featured Silcott on a day release “shopping trip” in 2002 before his release for a completely unrelated murder is a typical example.

Each time Silcott appeared so did a Sun “exclusive” complete with a quote from PC Blakelock’s bereaved wife. As far as the newspaper was concerned he was still guilty regardless of the evidence.

This coverage clearly benefited all parties who were united in their desire to keep the vendetta against Silcott going as long as possible.

It was unfinished business and as far as they were concerned Silcott did it. Only he didn’t. He was awarded £50,000 in compensation for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution in 1999, as well as £17,000 for wrongful conviction.

In 1999, eight years after Silcott’s conviction for the killing of PC Blakelock was quashed, The Sun ran a front page splash – “He’s Out!” – accompanied by a large photo of him on day release.

The sense of danger must have flowed through every one of their three million readers, at least those that aren’t black. The front page screeched; “”This is grinning murderer Winston Silcott – out of jail and enjoying a shopping spree.” There was the obligatory reference to PC Blakelock.

The Sun also made excuses for the death of Cynthia Jarrett during a police raid, the incident that sparked the Broadwater disturbances in the first place. The paper reported: “Cynthia Jarrett died of a heart attack. She was grossly overweight and had other medical problems.” 

What these cases have in common are police conspiring with journalists to portray people of African descent in a negative light and the police in a good light.

Lord Leveson devoted attention to the way some newspapers demonised whole groups in society, particularly Muslims and asylum seekers. Strangely this part of the press inquiry was not covered by the press.

We need a new and separate public inquiry into the way journalists and anonymous officers stereotype black people.

Roy Greenslade highlighted another issue missing from the discourse when he wrote: “Representation and equality issues should be part of journalism training. [We] should insist that any new regulator does indeed act on Leveson’s recommendation to take complaints from third parties.”

Under the old Press Complaints Commission editors were given a green light to be as racist as they dare provided it is directed against a whole community as opposed to an individual. The situation is much the same under the new press regulatory regime, the Independent Press Standards Organisation.

As well as giving faith and race communities recourse to hold the press to account there is an urgent need to investigate the police-media axis that has led to many stories portraying both innocent black citizens, victims of unnecessary police force, and black officers who complain about racism, in a negative light.

We need to end the secret, attributable press briefings that put out selective facts and even untruths in order to slur death-in-custody victims, continually defame black people cleared of crimes they didn’t commit, and libel their own BAME staff who just want to be treated fairly.

And we need a more comprehensive media code of conduct covering equality, enforced by a stronger press regulator that cracks down on inaccurate reporting from such sources and provides greater redress for victims and substantial penalties for papers that indulge in such practices.

Lester Holloway was Editor of New Nation; News Editor of The Voice; News Editor of The Asian and a News Reporter at Eastern Eye.