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UK: Tears and anger at deaths in custody.

01 September 1999

At the end of October over 200 friends and relatives of people who have died in police custody marched from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street to demand accountability in the reviewing of deaths in prisons, police cells and psychiatric institutions. Dozens of family members and their friends and supporters linked arms in an emotional but dignified march called by the United Families and Friends Campaign. At Downing Street 65-year old Sylvia Sylvester, the mother of Roger Sylvester, handed in a placard with the names of 1,350 people who have died in custody since 1980 to the prime minister. Demonstrators held pictures of the dead and a minutes silence was held in their memory. With seventeen black deaths in custody so far this year the campaign is demanding that police and prison officers implicated in the killings should not be allowed to avoid prosecution through retirement. They also want to see the replacement of the Police Complaints Authority with a genuinely independent body and called for the government to launch a public inquiry into the rising toll of deaths in custody.

The United Families and Friends Campaign can be contacted c/o INQUEST, Ground Floor, Alexandra National House, 330 Seven Sister Road, London N4 2PJ, Tel 0370 432 439 or 0181 802 7430