Fatal fall during search
01 May 1994
The Police Complaints Authority is investigating the death of a Nigerian woman who died trying to escape from a north London flat where police and a bailiff went to serve a summons. The woman tried to climb from the balcony of the twelfth floor flat to the flat below, using a washing line, which snapped. Friends said she mistook the police for immigration officers. Speculative and unlawful immigration checks are commonplace in some areas on the part of police investigating other matters and have been the subject of complaint for decades. It is not known whether the police attempted to carry out immigration status checks in this case.
Independent 28.4.94