Concerns in Europe: January - June 2001
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Amnesty International September 2001
AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001
investigating allegations of serious police misconduct
in order to gain public legitimacy and credibility. The
organization urged that the proposed legislation
include the following:
·
there should be agreed criteria for the acceptance
and recording of complaints, and they should be
publicly available;
·
allegations of ill-treatment, harassment and cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment should be
explicitly included, regardless of the seriousness
of the injury, in the list of cases to be referred
directly to the proposed IPCC for investigation. In
each such instance the proposed IPCC should be
responsible for determining whether to submit a
case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS);
·
the proposed IPCC should have the power to
initiate investigations into patterns of alleged
police misconduct, whether or not complaints
have been lodged;
·
the complainant and his/her legal representative
should have the right to be present at disciplinary
hearings and not to be excluded from them by the
presiding officer, as should members of the
proposed IPCC;
·
information obtained from investigations should
be disclosed to the victim or
family of the victim,
subject only to the harm test;
·
the proposed IPCC should comply with and
uphold international human rights standards.
The consultation ended on 28 February 2001. Its
outcome had not been made public by the end of June.
Deaths in custody/disputed killings
Review of the coroner system
In March the Home Office announced a fundamental
review of the coroner system. The review - which will
cover England, Wales and Northern Ireland - will
extend to legislation and to the procedures for
investigation and certification of deaths, including
post-mortem examinations and inquests.
The terms of reference of the review include
consideration of: the most effective arrangements for
identifying the deceased and for ascertaining and
certifying the medical cause of death for public health
and public record purposes, having regard to
proposals for a system of medical examiners; the
extent to which the public interest may require deaths
to be subject to further independent investigation,
having regard to existing criminal and other statutory
and non-statutory investigative procedures; the
qualifications and experience required, and the
necessary supporting organizations and structures, for
those appointed to undertake the duties for
ascertaining, certifying and investigating deaths;
arrangements for the provision of post-mortem
services for the investigation of deaths.
In May AI wrote a letter to the Home Office
urging it to ensure that the inquiry be comprehensive
and impartial and include the participation of
coroners, doctors, academics, lawyers with experience
of representation of families of the deceased at
inquests, forensic scientists, human rights experts,
psychiatrists, people with experience of dealing with
victims’ families and people with experience of the
inquest systems in Northern Ireland and England and
Wales. The letter was sent jointly with three other non-
governmental organizations, namely Inquest, British
Irish Rights Watch and the Committee on the
Administration of Justice.
Deaths in police custody
James Ashley
In May all prosecutions against Sussex police officers
involved in an armed raid which resulted in the death
of James Ashley collapsed. James Ashley, 39, was
shot dead by a police marksman with a single bullet
reportedly at an 18-inch range in 1998 in Hastings,
Sussex. He was in his flat with his girlfriend, naked
and unarmed. The investigation into the circumstances
of his death, carried out by Kent police under the
supervision of the Police Complaints Authority,
concluded that the police raid was based on
intelligence which was “not mistaken or even merely
exaggerated, it was determinably false...there was a
plan to deceive and the intelligence was concocted”.
At the beginning of May the Sussex’s special
operation unit officer who shot James Ashley was
found not guilty of murder because the prosecution
could not disprove his claim that he acted in self-
defence. Later in the month, the prosecution against
three other Sussex officers charged with misfeasance-
misuse of public office for deliberately failing to make
a true assessment of the intelligence leading to the
armed raid, was dropped, notwithstanding that their
claims - that the raid was essential to recover a kilo of
cocaine, to seize a firearm and to arrest a man wanted
for attempted murder - were shown by the
investigation to be untrue. The prosecution reportedly
stated that although the raid should neither have been
sought nor approved, it would be impossible to pursue
cases against individual officers because of the depth
of the corporate failure in the force. A fourth officer
had been cleared of misfeasance at an earlier hearing,
again because the prosecution offered no evidence.
In June the Chief Constable of the Sussex police
resigned, following a call from the newly appointed
Home Secretary to the Sussex Police Authority “to
take whatever steps are necessary to restore public
confidence”, including considering whether the chief
constable’s employment should be terminated.
Roger Sylvester (update)
Although the family of Roger Sylvester were granted
permission in April to judicially review the CPS
decision not to prosecute any of the police officers
allegedly involved in his restraint, in May the High
Court decided to postpone the judicial review until
after an inquest is held. Roger Sylvester, a black man
aged 30, died a week after falling into a coma on 11