Blair Peach coroner spells out

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Police in action in Southall The Blair Peach inquest came to an end with a savage defence of police thuggery by the West London coroner, Dr John Burton.

His long summing up may rescue a respectable verdict for the state but it will do nothing to shake the conviction of every class conscious worker who has followed the inquest that the police not only murdered Blair Peach but that they have announced their intention to kill again.

Clubbed

Witnesses have given a graphic description of the SPG charge down Beachcroft Avenue in Southall and of Blair Peach being clubbed.

Then as Blair Peach sat on the pavement, dying from his fractured skull, he was ordered to move before being taken by local residents to a nearby house.

Other witnesses have told how they ran from the SPG but were followed and attacked.

The evidence from the 40 SPG men was, if anything, more damning.

Contradictory

Faulty memories and contradictory statements have built their own picture of a bunch of armed thugs arrogantly confident that they will never be called to account. The the whip jous plain 'unauthorised' weapons SPG lockers including and several varieties of clubs were blandly 'd away.

Nazi regalia

The police did not even seem particuarly anxious to present a credible story. Chillingly the court was told that in future these weapons-also used by the crime squad-should be issued officially.

Even the Nazi regalia discovered at the home of one of the SPG thugs, has, however, failed to dent the coroner's persistent belief in the police force that looks likely to keep him in business for years to come.

DI. John Burton-who claimed he was not advocating killing demonstrators-said that 'sufficient force to be effective' must be used by the police.

Although Burton has told the jury that the inquest is not supposed to be a trial, he at least has already found Blair Peach guilty.

He asked the jury whether anyone left in the street when the police charged could be 'innocent' "You have to decide whether a policeman in that situation might reasonably believe Blair Peach was one of the rioters. If he did, even if he is mistaken, he is still protected.

"If a policeman reasonably believed he was hitting one of the rioters and it was necessary to do so he woull be protected law."

Earlier Burton had outlined his defence of violence on a mass scale by police.

He held up for the jury, not the SPG locker weapons, but a chopper, and painted a picture of a beleagured force surrounded by an armed and dangerous mob.

"If you believe that is the situation they are in and they believe it is necessary to use force to disperse them to prevent them forming up again, it is necessary to use sufficient force to overcome all resistance. The force you use has got to be effective."

The force used on Blair Peach was certainly effective; but we should be grateful to Coroner Burton: His explanation of the class nature of the police force and his own court was timely and lucid.

Protected

His refusal to order Commander • John Cass' internal police report to be opened to the jury was a stirring defence of the police to be better protected by the courts than, say, Granada Television.

"A doubt has been placed in the jury's mind that there is something they should know about" , he complained.

Burton spent the rest of the inquest doing his best to eradicate that doubt.