Racist Murder in SE London

Everybody now agrees that the killing of Stephen Lawrence in Eltham  on 22 April 1993 was a terrible racist crime and two men have been jailed for his murder. Back in 1993 it was very different - Government and media indifference (with some exceptions) and police hostility to those campaigning against racist attacks.

It was a terrible time in South East London, when the borough of Greenwich was named by some as 'Britain's racist murder capital' (Independent, 12 June 1993).  In February 1991, 15-year-old Rolan Adams was killed on the way home from a vist to the Hawksmoor youth club in Bentham Road, Thamesmead.

The Rolan Adams banner on a march to the BNP HQ in February 1992

In July 1992, 15 year old Rohit Duggal was stabbed to death outside the kebab shop in Tudor Parade, Well Hall Road. A white youth named Peter Thompson was later jailed for his murder.

Relatives of Rohit Duggal on a November 1992
demonstration to the BNP HQ in Welling

Then came the murder of  18-year-old Stephen Lawrence in April 1993, also in Well Hall Road in Eltham. As with the Adams and the Duggal cases, the police and Crown Prosecution Service tried to deny the racist aspects of the murder.

Stephen Lawrence's parents at a vigil in May 1993

There were other murders too elsewhere in South London. Ruhullah Aramesh, a 24 year old Afghan refugee, was beaten to death in Thornton Heath by a gang armed with iron bars in July 1992. In October of that year Sher Singh Sagoo, a Deptford market trader, was attacked and killed. And murder was just the tip of the iceberg - between August 1990 and May 1991, 863 incidents of racist attacks and harassment were reported to the Greenwich Action Committee Against Racist Attacks alone.

I went on many demonstrations at that time, usually led by the families of murder victims. There was the Anti Racist Alliance demo in June 1993 from Norbury Park to the scene of Ruhullah Aramesh's murder.

There was the march against the British National Party's 'Rights for Whites' demo in Thamesmead in May 1991, provocatively called a few months after the murder of Rolan Adams in the same area where he was killed. The police mobilised their forces included mounted police to stop the anti-racists who outnumbered the BNP ten to one (roughly 1200 to 120).

I remember seeing riot police baton people's heads out of sight of the cameras in a car park between housing blocks on the estate. I took a friend with a head wound to Kings hospital in Camberwell as we didn't think the local casualty department would be a safe place to go.  Incidentally Stephen Lawrence (then at Blackheath Bluecoats School),  took part on the anti-BNP demo that day too.

'Horseback police in riot gear charged hundreds of screaming demonstrators as a protest ended in violence. Policy carrying batons and wearing protective visors waded into demonstrators in Thamesmead on Saturday. About 20 protesters were arrested and one PC injured as campaigners tried to block a march by the right-wing British National Party. More than 150 BNP members had intended to march from the Hawksmoor Youth Club to Bentham Road – just a few feet from where 15 year old Rolan Adams was stabbed to death in February. But police changed the route after discovering more than 3000 anti-racists were to stage a counter demonstration. The anti-BNP marchers, led by the Greenwich Action Committee Against Racist Attacks, became angered when they realized they would not be allowed anywhere near the right-wingers… as a breakaway group ran down a cul-de-sac guarded by  police horse riders, trouble flared. Police reports claim bricks and missiles were thrown at officers… An eyewitness saw three members of the crowd trampled underfoot by horses’ (Erith and Crayford Times, 30 May 1991).

Welling demonstration, October 1993

Increasingly the headquarters of the BNP in Upper Wickham Lane, Welling, became the focus of demonstrations. The point wasn't that the racist murders were being explicitly organised by them, but that they were spewing out racist poison that was legitimising these attacks.

The biggest demonstration took place on 16th October 1993.  Anti-fascist magazine Searchlight estimated 40,000 people attended, the Independent 25,000 and Socialist Worker 60,000. Either way it must have been one of the biggest demonstrations ever seen in South East London. The Unity demo against the BNP started off with a massive rally on Winns Common, before heading off towards Welling.

Auschwitz survivor Leon Greenman leads the march

According to Searchlight (November 1993), 'the marchers arrived at the crossroads where one road went to the nazi headquarters and the other [Lodge Hill] was the route imposed by the police. At this point the Unity banner at the head of the march was facing into the road leading to the BNP headquarters. The stewards and Leon Greenman, an 82 year old survivor of the Nazi death camps, tried to negotiate passage through the police line. When it was refused, some of the marchers sat down'. Riot police, including some on horseback, charged the crowd and there were riotous scenes with smoke bombs,  flying bricks, snatch squads and 3,000+ police. At least 56 demonstrators were injured and 31 people were arrested on the day' (Sunday Times, 17 October 1993). Personally I didn't even see any of this until I got home on TV as I had been trapped in the crowd by Plumstead cemetery - like much of the crowd unable to move because the police had blocked both Upper Wickham Lane (towards the BNP HQ) and Lodge Hill (the route the police had earlier said the march would have to take).

One woman reported at the time 'I was sitting on a wall, just trying to avoid the police. A policeman pushed me off. The police charged from a side street. I tripped over a bush and four police just laid into me with truncheons.  I was on the floor and one of them was kneeling on me, just hitting me. Later I saw a man in a wheelchair. The police charged again and again and just knocked him over. He fell out of his chair. My friend - she's 16 - tried to help him up and the police started hiting her' (Socialist Worker, 23 October 1993) 



Anti-Nazi League chief steward Julie Waterson
bleeding after being batoned by police in October 1993

The BNP HQ finally closed in 1995, following action by Bexley Council.

See also: Bob from Brockley, pretty much summing up what I think about the whole affair; 853 - thoughts of a SE London contemporary of Stephen Lawerence, and a reminder  'that it was the community in Eltham who gave up the names of Dobson and Norris in the first place. It was the local Metropolitan Police who decided that the death of a black man wasn’t worth investigating properly, not the people of Eltham'; Ian Bone points out that one of the police officers who mismanaged the original Lawrence investigation became a Croydon Conservative councillor - David Osland wrote to his superiors in September 1993 that 'Our patience is wearing thin on 3 Area (south-east London)... with the Lawrence family and their representatives'.

[update 11 January 2012 : 'The dad of Stephen Lawrence has passed potentially crucial new evidence on his son's murder to cops, he revealed yesterday. Neville Lawrence, 69, was told a suspect had now confessed to being at the scene of the murder.The development comes after two men were jailed for life last week for the gang murder of Stephen in 1993. Mr Lawrence said: "After the verdict, I met two people in Brockley, London, on Saturday who knew one of the guys that was part of the gang. They mentioned the boy confessed that he was there on the night. They gave me their names and addresses and I passed them on to the police." Mr Lawrence called on the racist pair to tell cops where the knife used to stab his son is hidden. He added: "There is forensic evidence on that knife to convict somebody else.". His plea came as a burger bar worker claimed Norris was involved in a brutal attack on him six weeks BEFORE Stephen was murdered. Gurdeep Bhangal, 41, said he confronted the yob after he banged on the window of the Eltham branch of Wimpy. He said: "I got hold of him and was stabbed by another person." No one was arrested, [The Sun, 10 January 2012]

As Bob from Brockley reminds us in the comments, while failing to find evidence against the killers the police were deploying resources in infiltrating anti-racist groups - and indeed a former police spy has admitted to taking part in attacks on police lines in Welling (see Bob's post on this affair).

Murder in New Cross and Thornton Heath

A 19 year old who was attacked last April in Sandford Street, New Cross, has died after being in a coma for eight months. Johnson Ndjoli died on January 5th from the injuries he sustained when he was shot, stabbed and run over by van. In November 2009, two brothers were jailed for 35 years for his attempted murder. Dwight Callender, aged 23, of Mercator Road, Lewisham, and Derrell Callender, aged 20, of Leybridge Court, Eltham, were said to have been part of the 'Shower Gang' and to have carried out the attack following an argument with Ndjoli's friend Mohammed Turay, who was also injured.

The New Year started with a murder in Thornton Heath, where the family of the victim have criticised police handling and press coverage of the crime. The Deslandes family run the Newton Arms pub in Thornton Heath. Their account is that after an argument at a New Year's Eve party, a man was ejected from the pub and came back later with a gun. 34 year old Darren Deslandes was shot dead, and and his 25 year old brother, Wintworth [Junior] Deslandes, remains in the Critical Care Unit.

The Sun, however, reported that 'Two men shot after a New Year party are believed to have taken part in a Wild West-style shootout. One man in his 30s died from gunshot wounds and the other, in his 20s, is critical after the gun battle in Thornton Heath, south London'. In the press release (reproduced in full at Black Looks) 'The Deslandes family formally demand a full apology from the Sun and a full retraction of the cruel lies they have spread about the Murder of one innocent, law abiding young man and the attempted murder of another . Wintworth and Leline have a third son, James, age 13. He witnessed the Murder of his eldest brother. His other brother is fighting for his life and his parents are irreconcilably devastated'.

What this case shows is that the magic words 'Operation Trident, the force's black-on-black gun crime taskforce, are investigating', along with innaccurate press reporting, can create complacency and indifference amongst the wider community. There is an unspoken assumption that anybody who gets shot was probably involved in gangs, maybe even deserved it, and that nobody else should worry or even care. But people with no involvement in violent crime can get killed if they argue with the wrong person, try to break up a fight or go to the aid of a friend. And even when the victims are involved in gangs, it remains a tragedy for their families and for all of us that young lives are being wasted.

Brockley Mess

Some kind of aliens/snow people/monsters have taken over the garden at Brockley Mess for the festive period. Well, whatever they are it's the cutest Christmas installation spotted so far this year.

Inside there's an exhibition of paintings by Brixton-based artist Martin Grover. There's a picture of Brockwell Park ponds, but I was particularly taken by the large scale paintings of 7" singles.

What lifts them above straightforward reproductions of record sleeves off the production line is that they are actually paintings of specific individual objects with their own histories. So one record has the handwritten name of the girl it used to belong to on the label, while this copy of Thin Lizzy's Whisky in the Jar has a stamp from the record shop on the sleeve: 'Whymants Records, 1050 London Road, Thornton Heath'.

Oh and the coffee and cake was very nice too!