The racist thugs of Holloway Police Station have beaten up yet another black youth. Their latest victim, Junior Archer, like the Earlington family, has decided to fight the case. He has asked the Earlington Family Defence Committee to take it up.
Junior Archer is 18, he lives in Hornsey. On Thursday evening (6 March) he went out to a club. On his way home in the early hours of Friday morning he was stopped on Tollington Way by four police. There were two other people with Junior but he was caught first, and surrounded. He stood there, he didn’t move, he didn’t push to get free, he didn’t say anything. Immediately, seven other police arrived in a van. The brutality started right away when the police tried to get information out of Junior about the people with him.
Junior was struck on the forehead with a truncheon. The photograph shows the gash it left. He was punched on his left side his ribs remained badly bruised for days. A second truncheon blow struck the right side of his face which is very badly swollen. He was kicked and when he doubled up he was kneed in the face by a policewoman. He was thrown into a van and taken to Holloway police station — the punches continued.
His face was covered in blood. It took half an hour before a police surgeon was brought to check the injuries to his head.
Junior refused to give a statement, so he was punched. He refused a second time and was punched again. He was taken to the police cells and his head was repeatedly banged against the wail. Junior was finally forced to make a statement as a result of this brutal treatment.
Junior appeared at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court on Friday morning (7 March). The date given for the next hearing is 28 March. Junior then went to hospital for an X-ray and to see his family doctor who noted all his injuries, agreeing that they were compatible with all that Junior had reported.
The legal aid office at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court directed Junior to a local solicitor. During Junior’s first interview with him, the solicitor did not ask Junior about X-rays or a doctor’s report, nor did he advise him to keep his bloodstained clothing as evidence. The experience of the Earlington Family Defence Committee is that this failure to gather and use defence evidence concerning police brutality and frame-ups is normal for solicitors appointed by Highbury Corner Magistrates Court.
The Defence Committee has always argued that the Earlington case is only part of the consistent level of police harassment of black people in the area. We intend to take up the case of Junior Archer. We are determined, along with Junior, that this latest example of the racist thuggery of the police will be fought.
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! no. 3 March/April 1980
