Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No. 1, November/December 1979
Only occasionally a major police assault on black people, such as at Southall, is reported in the press. Yet every day the police force shows itself to be racist from top to bottom. As a major agency of the British imperialist, racist state, the police force continually abuses, terrorises and assaults black people, then drags them before the courts for imprisonment on trumped-up charges.
The following account is an example of police racism and the methods they employ to try and convict the victims of such attacks. Just after midnight on 3 July last year, six men and a woman burst into the home of Mr Nazir Ahmed above his shop in Manchester. Two doors were smashed down, five children sleeping in the house were terrified, and, as Nazir tried to ring the Police for help, the phone was ripped off the wall. Rightly thinking themselves to be under racist attack, Nazir and his son Munir tried to defend themselves and their family. Their mistake was in thinking their attackers to be National Front, they were in fact plain-clothes police. Nazir was dragged downstairs by the police, he was beaten up and his face was ground into a metal grating. As a result he suffered cuts and bruises to the face and a cut forehead requiring eight stitches. Still believing a National Front attack to be in progress, Munir tried to defend his father. In the course of the attack not only was Nazir injured, but the children were terrified, doors broken down and the phone and furniture vandalised. Nazir and Munir were arrested, taken to Levenshulme Police station where Nazir was charged with assault on a constable and wounding with intent and Munir with carrying an offensive weapon and two counts of assault on a constable. The police then set about fabricating evidence to convict their victims on these charges, claiming that the Ahmeds knew the men were police from the outset.
There are usually only two ways that black people facing such trumped-up charges are acquitted in a British court. One is, as in the case of George Lindo, that the police concerned are caught framing some one in another case; the other is what happened in this case — that the police evidence is so ridiculous and so contradictory, that the trial is stopped to protect the ‘reputation’ of the police.
The case came to court in July this year, and it soon became obvious that the police evidence was a pack of lies. The first contradiction in their evidence arose after Sgt Barlow claimed that Nazir had come down to the shop in answer to his knock, switched on the light, and seeing the search warrant, ran back upstairs to the flat. PC Thompson, a later police witness could not remember the light going on, and Sgt Barlow himself made no mention of the light in his written statement. The confusion arose because the incident never occurred, the police did not knock, they broke the door down without warning. After forcing the door to the flat the police were attacked by Nazir with a bottle and shovel, said Sgt Barlow. He was contradicted by PC Thompson who named (and described) the attacker as Munir: this is rather odd as Nazir is at least twenty years older than Munir, is several stones heavier, and has a full beard while Munir is clean shaven. Sgt Barlow next asked the court to believe that the response of the police to this vicious attack was to produce their identification and say, ‘We are Police Officers, we have a warrant to search your premises’! Sgt Barlow who said that Nazir was led quietly down the stairs was contradicted by PC Thompson for the third time when Thompson said Nazir was dragged down the stairs. Fourthly Sgt Barlow denied that Nazir was shouting ‘Help, National Front!’ while PC Thompson admitted that he was. The police claimed that Munir was arrested as soon as he came out of the shop to try and free his father, but a neighbour gave evidence that Munir had aroused him by knocking on his door at the time when he was allegedly under arrest six doors and a side street away. The sixth contradiction in the prosecution case concerned the phone; the police denied even seeing a phone, but a neighbour who entered the flat immediately after the Police left gave evidence that the phone lead had been torn out.
Finally Thompson claimed he charged Nazir at about 4 am before going off duty at 5 am, but the charge sheet (witnessed by Sgt Barry Shaw — since sacked for various irregularities) maintained he was charged at 6.10 am. Everyone agreed that Nazir had been interviewed by CID man Lowmass at 5.30am. If Thompson was right, ie if Nazir was charged at 4 am, Lowmass had interviewed Nazir after he had been charged with the offense — a breach of Judge’s Rules, and Sgt Shaw had falsified the charge sheet to cover this up. At this point the Judge had two options, he could proceed with the trial, in which case one or more of the police would be shown to have falsified documents, or he could stop the trial and so cover up for the police. He chose the latter and instructed the jury to find the Ahmeds not guilty.
So this case ended in a victory, but how many hundreds of black people are in prison at the moment through the connivance of the police and the courts? The Ahmeds were spared prison only because of the contradictions in the mountain of lies, distortions, perjury and corruption that the police presented as evidence. The Ahmeds suffered physical injury, distress, anxiety, and damage to their property while their racist attackers — the police — went free. This, along with imprisonment, is what ‘British Justice’ means for black people in this country.
Manchester correspondent
