On average, three people die in custody every week. On the few occasions that police officers stand trial over a death they can depend on the judiciary to get them off the hook, as two cases, which both ended on 21 June, demonstrate. The acquittal of the five officers involved in the murder of Christopher Alder, a black ex-paratrooper, will be covered in FRFI 169. Here, Jim Wills reports on the cover-up that followed the shooting of Harry Stanley.
The five-day inquest into the death of Harry Stanley, who was shot dead by armed police in Hackney, London, turned tragedy into farce as the coroner, Dr Stephen Chan, refused to allow the jury to return a verdict of unlawful killing. He would only allow a lawful killing verdict or an open verdict. The jury opted for an open verdict. Afterwards, each jury member shook Harry’s widow Irene by the hand and apologised, saying, ‘We did the best we were allowed to do.’
Harry, who was Scottish, was a painter and decorator. On 22 September 1999 it was a week since Harry had been discharged from hospital following a cancer operation. The operation had left him unable to walk properly or raise his hands above his shoulders. However, the doctors had told him he was clear of cancer, so he was in good spirits. He told Irene that he was going to his brother Peter’s house to mend a broken table leg and wanted ‘stovies’ for dinner. Irene never heard Harry’s voice again.
Harry had a drink with Peter before setting off home. Feeling tired on the way back, Harry called into the Alexandria pub for half a pint of lemonade and stayed about 15 minutes.
There had been a violent incident involving armed police in an attack on an Asian group, including a young woman with a baby, right outside the Alexandria less than two hours earlier, and at the inquest, the police admitted that they were ‘looking for a gun’. It was the start of the chain of events that led to Harry’s death. Apart from putting silly ideas into drunken heads, it reveals the mood and the mindset of the police in Hackney on that evening.
Some of the customers and the landlady mistook Harry’s Glaswegian accent for Irish. He was carrying a table leg in a blue plastic bag. When he left, Clifford William, a customer in the pub, dialled 999, telling the operator that an Irish man had left the pub with a sawn-off shotgun. He claimed he had seen its barrels and the trigger. At the inquest he admitted he had seen no such thing. Seven minutes and 54 seconds after that call, Harry was dead.
Many things remain unexplained. This SO19 unit did not consist of three people as normal, only two. The second in command, Sgt Michael Meany, did not arrive until after Harry had been shot. Where was he? Had this unit been involved in the earlier incident? Were they still all gung ho after it?
One thing is certain – they must have been in the immediate area to have responded so quickly. Another sure thing is that they had not been briefed. There wasn’t time. So, acting on drunken tittle-tattle and their own anti-Irish racism, they set of down Victoria Park Road, looking for ‘a big Irish bloke in a suede jacket, carrying a blue plastic bag with a gun in it’ (Inspector Neil Sharman at the inquest).
When Inspector Sharman and Constable Kevin Fagin found Harry, he was almost home. Both officers claimed that they made two challenges – ‘Stop! Stand still! Armed police!’ ‘Stop! Put the gun down!’ – and that Harry turned to face them with the bag outstretched in front of him. Yet the forensic evidence says Harry was turned away from them and looking over his shoulder at an angle of 110 degrees. Sharman claimed to have shot into Harry’s right hand side, aiming at the torso. In fact, the entry wound was in his left temple. When Tim Owen QC, the family barrister, tried to question Sharman over this discrepancy, Chan admonished him, saying, ‘This is not a back door to a trial.’
The officers fired from a range of just five yards and forensic evidence proves they shot Harry in the back. Sharman claimed he thought he heard Harry’s gun ‘go off’. In fact, what he heard was Fagin opening fire. Fagin hit Harry in the left hand, blowing off three of his fingers. Harry died instantly as a 9mm unjacketed bullet went through his brain: such bullets are illegal in battle under the Geneva Convention – it is the same as a dum-dum bullet. Two paramedics who rushed out of their homes to give first aid and a local doctor had police guns turned on them.
Although Harry was about 50 yards from his home and had on him his passport, birth certificate and bank book, Irene wasn’t told that he’d been shot for 18 hours. Yet during those18 hours Chan ordered a post mortem.
He knew Harry’s identity and where he lived. A coroner is required to inform the next of kin prior to any post mortem to enable them to have a qualified witness present. At the inquest Sharman and Fagin read out Harry’s police record. When Tim Owen objected he was told by Chan to ‘Sit down and shut up.’ Rather than examine the police behaviour on the night, the inquest chose to focus Harry’s previous police record, how much he had drunk that afternoon and whether he was fit to drive (although he had been walking).
Summing up, Chan made no reference to the conflict between the officers’ account and the forensic evidence. Evidence from ballistic and forensic experts acting for the family’s lawyers wasn’t heard.
But the police haven’t got away with murder yet. The family, undaunted, are now seeking a judicial review in their ongoing battle to get justice for Harry Stanley.
FRFI 168 August / September 2002
