UK: "Shocking" CPS decision allows officers to escape charges
01 November 2000
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has announced that it will not be bringing charges against any of the police officers involved in the death of Roger Sylvester. In a press release issued in November the CPS advised that "there is insufficient evidence for any criminal charges against any police officer." Roger died a week after he was restrained by eight police officers outside his home in north London in January 1999 because he was acting "suspiciously", (see Statewatch vol 9 no 1, vol 10 no 5). However, as the Metropolitan police were later to admit when they apologised and retracted claims that he was found naked and causing a disturbance, he was merely knocking on his own front door and there was neither cause for police suspicion nor intervention.
Last August Roger's family and friends held a vigil outside the Home Office to express their concern at having to wait so long for the CPS's decision on whether the nine police officers involved in his death would be prosecuted. At the protest Roger's mother, Sheila, presented a "letter of dissatisfaction" to the Home Secretary and called for an independent inquiry into the circumstances of her sons's death, fearing that the CPS decision would "not be based on the truth and therefore justice will not prevail...". The decision not to prosecute means that the only public forum for the events surrounding Roger's death will be at his inquest, which will now go ahead. Although the police officers involved in Roger's death will be called to give evidence, they will be able to remain silent so that their answers will not incriminate them.
The CPS statement was condemned by Deborah Coles of INQUEST who described it as an "outrageous decision". She criticised the "institutionalised inability or unwillingness of the CPS to bring criminal charges against police officers who are alleged to have abused their powers" and questioned the validity of a flawed investigation process that allows the police to investigate themselves. She asked:
When is the Government going to act so that when someone else dies at the hands of the state the procedures that follow ensure accountability, openness and a pursuit of truth?
Commenting on the CPS decision Mrs Sylvester described it as "shocking", but "no surprise";
...I am no closer to finding out the truth about how he [Roger] died. There is something shameful about a system where when people die in custody their custodians never give a proper account of what they did and the system is not geared towards making anyone properly accountable.
The Roger Sylvester Justice Campaign can be contacted at PO Box 25908, London N18 1WU, Tel. 07931 970442. A detailed briefing on the case is available on the INQUEST website www.inquest.org.uk; INQUEST press release 20.11.00; INQUEST "Report on the death in police custody of Roger Sylvester" (2000); Crown Prosecution Service press release 20.11.00