The death of Joy Gardner
01 July 2003
On Tuesday 28 July police officers from the Metropolitan Police SO1(3) extradition branch raided the home of Joy Gardner, a black woman, to enforce a deportation order. Four days later she was officially pronounced dead by Whittington hospital in north London.
Five police officers and an immigration official arrived at her flat in Crouch End, London early in the morning. Joy Gardner was at home with her five year old son. There was a struggle and the police overpowered her. Her mother Myrna Simpson, who has lived in the UK for 33 years, told a packed public meeting that: "They taped up her mouth. They taped her feet. They sat on her stomach and damaged her kidneys, her liver and her brain". The police had also put a body belt (a leather belt with attached handcuffs) on Joy Gardner to restrain her. Myrna Simpson also described what happened in the words of Joy Gardner's five year old son, Graham: "There was a big fight. Three of them were sitting on top of mummy, others were kicking her". Joy Gardner's mother's view is plainly put:
The police killed my daughter. They said she collapsed but she was a healthy woman. They had no need to treat her with such force. They went in with vengeance in their hearts. It's one law for black, another for white.
The time and cause of Joy Gardner's death is a matter of dispute between the family and the authorities. The ambulance service was contacted at 8.04 am and arrived at the flat at 8.15 am. An ambulance service spokesperson said "there was no heart beat and no sign of any activity from the heart" and it took the paramedics 25 minutes to revive her pulse. Joy Gardner was taken to hospital in a coma and put on a life support system, she never recovered consciousness and died four days later. The family say: You cannot be lifeless for so long and live. She was effectively dead when she arrived at the hospital and the family described how when they went to visit her she was covered in bruises and smelling from decomposition.
The initial Home Office post mortem said that she had died of kidney failure. A heart specialist told the Police Complaints Authority that she may have collapsed because "she was in some way deprived of oxygen". The specialist identified three possible reasons for her going into a coma: the tape covered both her nose and mouth depriving her of oxygen; she swallowed her tongue after the gag was put on; or the officer restrained her with such force she was unable to breath. A post mortem for the family on 10 August showed that she had died from suffocation, this opinion was agreed by Dr West for the family and three other pathologists representing the three police officers, the Police Complaints Authority inquiry and the coroner
Joy Gardner, aged 40, was from Jamaica and had come to the UK on a six-months visitors permit in 1987. She was arrested in 1990, one month after marrying here but was released pending judicial review. This was turned down in 1991,. In January 1993 Joy Gardner's solicitor lodged an appeal to stay on compassionate grounds; she had no family in Jamaica to give support but had her mother, a half-sister, a half-brother, three uncles, two aunts and numerous cousins in the UK. At 9.30 am on July 28th, her solicitor, Djemal Dervish, opened a letter from the Home Office turning down her appeal, it said: "Arrangements will shortly be made for her removal to Jamaica". Mr Dervish said: "As far as she knew her appeal was still being considered when the police came knocking on her door."
Three members of the Met extradition unit, a woman sergeant and two male constables were suspended from duty and the squad's involvement in deportations put on hold. This Metropolitan Police unit, SO1(3) has twenty officers eight of whom, under an inspector, assist immigration officers carrying out deportation orders where "resistance or violence was expected" (Mr Condon, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police). It appears to be standard practice where<