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Written Evidence from INQUEST (RHR0024)

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Written Evidence from INQUEST (RHR0024) Written evidence from INQUEST (RHR0024) Background 1. INQUEST is the only charity providing expertise on state related deaths and their investigation.1 We welcome this inquiry which resonates with our longstanding work on deaths of Black people in custody and detention and other deaths raising concerns about racism and human rights abuses. This is an important human rights issue that concerns racism and discrimination with repercussions to the right to life and the duty of the state to protect life.2 2. Whilst this submission focuses on our work alongside families following deaths in custody and detention, institutional racism and systemic neglect is endemic across society. Whether it is the racial and health inequalities that has seen the devastation of deaths from COVID-19 disproportionately impacting Black and Asian communities, or the preventable and forewarned fire at Grenfell Tower that demonstrates where profit was pursued over safety – both point to the important intersectionality of race and class which underpins many deaths engaging issues of state and corporate accountability3. 3. INQUEST’s evidence draws from our involvement, alongside bereaved families, in many reports and reviews that address directly or indirectly issues of racism, in areas of detention and health specified by the Committee’s terms of reference. Importantly, some have recognised structural and institutional racism (often informed by those with lived experience or by the families of those who have died).4 4. Many of the cases INQUEST has worked on have presented a disturbing picture of violence, racism and inhumane attitudes towards people in distress; ascribing stereotypical characteristics of extraordinary strength, dangerousness and criminality to Black people. The racial stereotype of ‘big, black and dangerous,’ ‘violent’ and ‘volatile’, when woven into the culture and practice of the police and other detention settings, can lead to the disproportionate and sometimes fatal use of force and neglect.5 1 INQUEST provides expertise to bereaved people, lawyers, advice and support agencies, the media and parliamentarians. Our specialist casework includes deaths in prison and police custody, immigration detention, mental health settings and deaths involving multi-agency failings or where wider issues of state and corporate accountability are in question. INQUEST’s Executive Director, Deborah Coles, sits on the cross-government Ministerial Board on Deaths in Custody and is a member of the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody. 2 We focus particularly on Article 2 (the right to life), Article 3 (the prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment) and subsequently Article 14 (the protection of all rights without discrimination) 3 This is elaborated further in Deborah Coles’ chapter in Justice Matters https://www.lag.org.uk/?id=208817 4 These include the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (1997), the Independent Inquiry into the death of David Bennett (2003), Zahid Mubarek Inquiry (2006), Casale Review (2013), The Angiolini Review (2017) and the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act (2018); The Harris Review (2015). 5 See, among others, INQUEST’s submission to the UN Regional Meeting on the International Decade for People of African Descent, 2017: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Racism/WGEAPD/RegionalMeetingEurope/Deborah%20Coles%20Paper%20- %20JUSTICE.pdf 5. In this submission we draw specifically from our experience during and after the Angiolini Review into Deaths and Serious Incidents in Police Custody (2017). This review is of particular relevance as it was set up as a direct response to the deaths of Sean Rigg and Olaseni Lewis, two Black men who died after the use of restraint and the “appalling level of delays, obfuscations and institutional blunders that followed”.6 Unusually for a review that is not explicitly focussed on race, the report considers disproportionality, racial stereotyping and accountability in detail. Racial inequalities and racism: the experience of bereaved Black families 6. The focus of this inquiry on why progress has not been made is welcome. However, to identify why this is the case, we think there still needs to be greater understanding and recognition of the deeply rooted racial inequalities and racism that exists. In Annexe 1 we set out some of the key data that illustrates a continuum of racial inequalities that are aggravated in state custody and detention, and lead to racialised state harm and violence. 7. In preparation for this submission, we sought insight from the family members of Black people who had died in police custody, prison or mental health settings, who INQUEST have supported through the investigation and inquest processes. 7 8. Families spoke of feeling as though they were having to censor themselves or not reference race when the deaths of their loved ones were being investigated, despite knowing it was a factor, because it might reflect badly on them. They also raised not wanting to have to challenge racist perceptions whilst also navigating the complexity of the process. “I didn’t want the perception of the public, oh they’ve got a chip on their shoulder because he’s Black…I knew it was there just didn’t highlight it. It was also not highlighted by the IPPC” - Marcia Rigg “With my nephew I haven’t made reference to race at all and I’ve deliberately done that as well. Everything I have put in writing I’ve just challenged the facts as they see and asked for proof for everything they’ve said that they believe is fact” - Anonymous family member “When it comes to racism… they expected her to be as a Black woman mad and angry and loud and aggressive, where my niece was very soft, very gentle” - Anonymous family member “We didn’t mention anything about racism either because it was more of a family discussion that we spoke about racism. When we got together to talk about what was happening with 6 Dame Elish Angiolini QC (30 October 2017), Deaths and serious incidents in police custody, paragraph 1.8, available: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/deaths-and-serious-incidents-in-police-custody INQUEST’s Deborah Coles was expert advisor to the review. 7 INQUEST held an online Family Consultation Café on the 2 September 2020 with eight family members whose relatives had died between 2008 and 2019 across different state settings including police custody, prison, and in mental health detention. us we thought, what else could it be? They’re so hostile towards you” - Marilyn Medford- Hawkins 9. Families also raised their experience of racist narratives being introduced during post death processes. These include attempts to demonise the person who has died and build up a negative reputation, which creates the idea of an “undeserving” victim, deflects attention away from official incompetence or wrongdoing with misinformation. Families also told us they felt that instead of the death of their loved one being investigated, it was their private life and that of their relative that was subject to the most scrutiny. “The narrative from the beginning is racist, right from the get-go. They look for things to demonise your loved one. They try to get out a narrative to the press that is demonising, its racist, its dehumanising. That is their agenda” - Anonymous family member “His character is completely destroyed and that’s what they do. Instead of looking at what the police have done all the police background, they are busy looking at what my son’s done and its them that have killed him” - Anonymous family member “We were stone-walled; we were treated like criminals. [The IOPC] were just not forthcoming. They had no compassion” - Marilyn Medford-Hawkins, sister of Junior Medford “The [IPCC] were investigating the family, instead of the officers” Marcia Rigg, sister of Sean Rigg Accountability and transparency “We know that things are not changing over the years but it’s clear to me that the reason why it’s not changing and why recommendations are never being put forward is because there’s no one challenging, we’re [families] challenging but no one from the political side the reports are actually the same, the only changes are the person that has actually died” - Anonymous bereaved family 10. It is a common phenomenon for reports to be left to gather dust and their recommendations remain unimplemented. For bereaved families, like those who invested time, emotion and energy into the Angiolini review, the failure to make progress is a betrayal. “What’s happened to all the other reports which we all participated in?” - Anonymous bereaved family member “When are they are going to listen to us?” - Anonymous bereaved family member “I’d love to know what the government will do because…we’re bending over backwards, we’re doing research, we’re doing talks, we’re doing all sorts of stuff but yet there is no accountability. When are they are going to listen to us, when are they going to listen to us as a family.” - Anonymous family member 11. All of the families we spoke to as part of our consultation reported feeling disillusioned by the cyclical nature of reviews, reports and recommendations and the frustration that their experiences regrettably echoed those of families newly bereaved despite the years between them. The continued failure in progress on racism and disproportionality is a failure in the state’s human rights obligations to act to prevent future deaths. “You’ll lose the accountability if they simply know that all they have to do is put in a report to say that those recommendations have been completed” - Anonymous family member 12. Too often, there is little or no transparency or accountability for how recommendations are being acted upon. The process by which responses to recommendations are published is opaque and there is too little publicity or scrutiny of the responses which are crucial documents.
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