Battle stations! A meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) with a hot, hot item on the agenda.
At a meeting of a sub-committee of the Authority, a majority vote granted funding to eight Haringey police officers to apply for judicial review of a coroner’s verdict of unlawful killing on the death of Roger Sylvester in custody. The eight are currently suspended following that verdict.
Coming from Haringey myself, where there has been more than one black death in custody – I am acutely aware of the community’s opinion of policing and discrimination.
My colleague on the MPA Graham Tope is one of the ones that voted the funding for the officers through. Having taken advice – it would seem that the situation is that there is a presumption to fund officers to fight their legal case if what they are accused of happened whilst they were carrying out their job.
The Home Office guidance, which I read, appears to allow ‘discretion’ on the part of police authorities but advises that the presumption is in favour of funding.
All the night before I am mulling over the rights and wrongs of all of this. I want to fulfill my duty as a member of the MPA but feel very strongly that I cannot simply vote through funding that if taken to its conclusion may result in the verdict (although having to be redone) being overturned – when I feel that this man did die because of rough handling.
On the other side – if (as is the case) a judge believes that there were so many flaws in the legal process that he has given the officers leave to apply for judicial review – then I as a member of the Police Authority must facilitate justice.
In the meeting we are given legal advice to guide us – it helps not one bit – and end up juggling ‘discretion in terms of duty to fund’ versus ‘our responsibility under the GLA act to have consideration to the effect of our actions in terms of equalities’.
It is clear that every single member of the Authority will speak on this. As we go around the table there are many and very strong views. When we come to Peter Herbert, a black member and judge, he gives an impassioned speech against the funding – but appears to go completely over the top and other members feel insulted by his angry rant. He later says that he just was so angry he could not help himself. He is completely supported by Cindy Butts who speaks next and says that if we (the authority) make a decision to fund the officers and the Sylvester family, who are present, that is a cop out.
I didn’t feel it was a cop out – I thought it was a just solution – and in the end that is the way the authority voted. We will fund both the officers and the family (if the latter is legally possible – and if it isn’t, then we will fund neither).
For myself – I felt it my duty to facilitate justice and would fund officers to defend themselves. I cannot imagine that had these been black officers that there would be any question of not funding them. However, I believed it equally my duty to make sure that the family could fight this on equal terms by funding them. Perhaps, more to the point for me, was that I do not want any question mark hanging over the coroners’ verdict. It was a milestone in race relations with the police that this verdict was arrived at. If it survives a judicial review and a re-verdict – then no one will be able to question its authority and only then will the force and the politicians look at the issue around restraint and how to quantify ‘reasonable’.
I think we came to the right solution – but there in the room was a lot of real nastiness and many agendas on display. I sometimes feel quite despairing about race relations. You can only ever succeed if you deal absolutely straight with what is – and the forces of evil are definitely around on both sides on this one.
Lynne Featherstone 