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8.40 pm
Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton): I congratulate thehon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington(Mr. Forman) on, as usual, making a thoughtful speech.I agreed with much of it, especially his opening remarks about "designing out" crime on housing estates. As he said, we need to invest money for that purpose. Closed circuit television, entryphones and street lighting can all help.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow(Mr. Gerrard) paid tribute to his local police force. As myhon. Friend's neighbour, I am happy to pay tribute to my local force, which has a good record in tackling racial and domestic violence every day, as well as more unusual crimes. It also has a good record on community policing.
The Waltham Forest panel of lay visitors has raised two important issues. The first is the detention of immigrants in police cells. In a report, the panel stated that in the summer of last year, four detainees were kept for as long as 80 hours in cells that were suitable only for detention for up to 24 hours. That, said the panel, imposed an unnecessary strain on both police and detainees--including other detainees being held in police cells.
Such lengthy detentions are unacceptable. Police cells, after all, are not prison cells; nor are they immigration detention centres. It should be borne in mind that the detainees have committed no crime.
The panel's second point relates to forensic medical examiners. Its report states:
Female FMEs, however, are not available. I wrote to the Minister of State, Home Office, who is responsible for prisons. She replied in September, saying that the Metropolitan police currently employed 117 FMEs, of whom only 25 were women.
The letter added:
The next sentence--with which I take issue--states:
I do not think that that is good enough. The panel referred to "cultural or personal reasons"; some of the women involved may have been victims of sexual assault,
and should have the right to be examined by a female FME if they request it. I shall not go into the details of women being shackled in prisons, but one of the obscene aspects of that is the fact that they were shackled to men. It is just as bad for a forensic medical examination to be carried out by a man against the wishes of the woman concerned.
The number of police officers from ethnic minorities is still very low, as is the proportion. At the time of a report issued by the Commissioner, only 11 police officers out of a total of 237 in Leyton were from ethnic minorities--4.64 per cent. In all divisions, out of 19,693 police--including school crossing patrols--only 625, or3.17 per cent., were from ethnic minorities. In that context, the police are not representative of the wider community they serve.
According to one report, some 60 per cent. of London's black 16 to 24-year-olds are out of work. There is discrimination against black people in general in terms of employment, but there is clearly discrimination against them in terms of police employment as well. If the police do not have enough officers from ethnic minorities, they will not have the necessary links with the ethnic minority communities where some crime occurs, and they will not be able to achieve the necessary results. My police chief tells me that many London police forces cannot take on more ethnic minority officers, because they are "downsizing".
The 1990 Trust--in conjunction with the National Black Caucus, the Association of Black Probation Officers, the Society of Black Lawyers and the Black Police Association--wrote to me about police recruitment. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, the trust pointed out:
According to the Black Police Association,
The trust also quoted from an article in The Guardian, published in late 1994, which referred to police attitudes. Mike Bennett, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, complained of
As the figures show, that was a very silly comment. Such attitudes need to be tackled.
The Conservative Government have a bad record on crime. Only one crime in 50 now results in a successful court conviction: that represents a 15 per cent. drop since 1980. The Government have cut compensation for victims. A woman who had been raped in a near-fatal attack received about £75,000 under the old scheme; now, she would receive only £7,500. A police officer who was the victim of crime would probably receive only a tenth of what he would have received under the old scheme.
The number of offences has risen by 47 per cent. since 1979 in London; within that figure, the level of violent crime has risen by 199 per cent., and the level of criminal damage by 116 per cent. The clear-up rate still hovers around 16 per cent.
The Government boast that the number of police officers has increased over the same period, but that is because the crime rate has soared. I will not go into the
details of the police formula to which my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) referred, but it seems that there will be cuts. The Association of London Authorities speaks of cuts of £30 million last year,£30 million this year and the possibility of £30 million in each of the next six years. That must be reflected in police numbers.
Deaths in custody are an important issue. The verdict of unlawful killing that was returned at the inquest into the death of Shiji Lapite a couple of weeks ago was the second unlawful killing verdict returned on deaths involving Metropolitan police officers in three months. The Lapite verdict was made on 25 January; that on Richard O'Brien was made on 10 November last year.
Those verdicts are a terrible indictment of London's police service. Both juries accepted that unlawful, excessive and reckless force had been used by the police officers concerned. Both coroners expressed their concerns, in the form of coroners' recommendations, about the restraint techniques used by the police, and referred the files back to the Crown Prosecution Service. Decisions by the CPS on the cases of Brian Douglas and Wayne Douglas, who also died at the hands of the police, are awaited.
At the Lapite inquest, it was astonishing that police officers' evidence was that they were unaware of the dangers of neckholds and had received no training about those dangers, despite the fact that the Police Complaints Authority and the Association of Chief Police Officers had expressed concern about them.
On the day of the Lapite verdict, the Met paid out £90,000-worth of damages to three people assaulted by officers, one of whom had applied a neckhold. I will not go into all the comments and into what the coroner said about those cases. In the Shiji Lapite case, the officer admitted kicking the head
The coroner described a "gross disparity" between injuries sustained by Lapite and what the officers said was the case.
The police seem to have learnt nothing from those deaths in custody. In 1981, Winston Rose, a mentally ill man in my constituency of Leyton, died after suffocating on his vomit. In 1983, the same happened to Nicholas Ofusi. Those deaths in police custody from suffocation put out warning signals. In my opinion, they spell malpractice. Both the recent deaths of Shiji Lapite and Richard O'Brien raise questions about the police's lack of accountability. Action has not been taken to prevent future brutalities.
The "Spitting Image" programme has a question and answer feature either side of the break. The question in the forthcoming week could be, "Who issued no statement of apology following those verdicts, including that on the unlawful killing of Shiji Lapite, but instead, the day after the Lapite verdict was returned, issued an attack on the largest-selling black newspaper, The Voice, for complaining about racism in the Met?"
The answer would be Sir Paul Condon, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. His reaction to those deaths in custody and to having to pay out those amounts of compensation are little short of shameful. He has a lot of good will, but he will lose it if he does not take firm action in relation to such deaths.
"We have noted that many female detainees for cultural or personal reasons have expressed a preference for the services of a female FME."
"If the sex of the person being examined is different to that of the FME, a chaperon is always present."
"The Commissioner tells me that custody officers are sensitive to the individual needs of detainees, and if a female FME is requested they will do their best to oblige."
"a higher proportion of ethnic minority officers quit the force compared to white officers."
"a large and increasing number of Black officers are forced to take the Met to Industrial Tribunals."
"a growing feeling in the police force that white heterosexual officers are an endangered species".
"as hard as he could".
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