Trevor Grundy
Slaughter of the other innocents Politicians like to think such things couldn’t happen in Britain, but often their memories are short and selective. . .
B
ritain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock is pleased Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests are in response to events in America, not
Britain. “I think, thankfully, this is all based in response to events in America rather than here, but we must also continue the drive here for tolerance and genuine equality of opportunity”, he is quoted saying in the June 12 edition of New Statesman magazine. The left-leaning weekly says under a heading, “A World in Revolt”, that there is a growing temptation for British politicians to contrast favourably the United Kingdom with the USA. “Yet,” says the NS, “the British protests were not just in response to Mr Floyd’s death. They were a demonstration against entrenched socio-economic inequality and pervasive racism in the UK, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic”. Naturally, every politician and, hopefully, policeman in the UK hopes the killer of George Floyd will be brought to justice in America. But it’s hard to avoid the fact
30 ColdType | July 2020 | www.coldtype.net
that so many prominent English politicians do enjoy sniffing the rubbish in other people’s dustbins while ignoring the stench in their own backyards. And many of them, like Matt Hancock, are blessed with short and highly selective memories.
J
ust think of Jean Charles de Menezes, the 27-year old electrician from Brazil, who was killed by an officer of the London Metropolitan Police at the Stockwell underground railway station in South London on July 22, 2005. Police stalked him from his home to an underground station, chased him down an escalator, followed him onto a tube train, spreadeagled him on the floor, rendered him immobile and then pumped in not one . . . not two . . . not three . . . but seven bullets into his head. De Menezes was innocent of any crime, nor was he connected to any terrorist organisation in Britain or anywhere else. He was a young man on his way to work who was at the wrong place at the
wrong time when police struck, wrongly believing he might be connected to an organisation that had set off bombs across London on July 7 that year, killing 52 and injuring more than 700. But the Brazilian had nothing to do with any of act of violence, so surely someone would face justice after the police admitted they’d killed the wrong man? However, none of the CCTV cameras was working at the underground station where de Menezes was shot dead, so it was decided not to prosecute individuals on the grounds of insufficient evidence. At a court hearing, the man who killed the innocent Brazilian sat behind a screen weeping. A criminal prosecution of Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner in his official capacity on behalf of his police force was brought under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, on the failure of the duty of care due to Menezes. The Police Commissioner was found guilty and his office was fined and fined £175,000. There was public anger, of course, but it was minute compared with what’s happening now
