Bully-boys in blue

LOUISE NOUSRATPOUR and PAUL DONOVAN on how the Met targeted a troublesome Irish human rights activist.

Saturday January 14, 2006
The Morning Star

DID the Metropolitan Police use the gruesome murder of teenage model Sally
Anne Bowman as an excuse to persecute a well-known Irish human rights
activist who has been a thorn in their side for years?

Patrick Reynolds believes so - and he is furious both that his son Kevin was
arrested on very shaky evidence and that the Met apparently took the
opportunity to raid his house for information on Patrick's campaigning work.

Patrick is chairman of the Irish in Britain Representation Group (IBRG),
which has worked on miscarriage of justice cases including those of Christy
McGrath and Barry George.

Kevin was arrested on December 13, dragged from his home at 3am and
manhandled into a police car, on suspicion of murdering Bowman, who was
sexually assaulted and then stabbed to death in the early hours of September
25 in Croydon, south-west London.

The police pounced on the opportunity to ransack Patrick's home in Wood
Green, north London.

Officers barged their way into the house, refused to present a search
warrant and proceeded to turn their home upside-down.

The search went on for an astonishing 29 hours.

The Met combed the place and even had the audacity to rifle through
unrelated IBRG files - including documents concerning the McGrath and George
cases and the organisation's current work on recent miscarriages of justice.

The search squad crashed through the house like bulls in a china shop, says
Patrick, smashing everything in their way.

"They pulled my house apart - breaking furniture and damaging the walls -
and went through all my files. Yet, I was not asked a single question about
my son," he says.

"They wouldn't tell me how long the search would last, so I was forced to
spend the night in my car. I was not allowed to enter the house to even
collect my mail."

They showed no consideration for his family's privacy and basic civil
rights, either.

"When I challenged them for a search warrant, the police claimed that they
did not need one. They also refused to tell me who was in charge of the
operation," says Patrick.

He is repulsed by the officers' "oppressive and ridiculous" behaviour. "You
don't treat a dog the way the police treated me and my family."

Did they really go in with the intention of looking for evidence related to
his son? Patrick wonders whether the search wasn't really aimed at vetting
IBRG files feared to contain evidence that could ruffle a few feathers at
the top.

"The police know that my house is the main mailing office for the IBRG. In
the past, I have been subjected to telephone tapping," he claims. And he's
suffered police vindictiveness in the past.

"Once, I needed a police check for my new job as a social worker. The police
sat on it for nearly nine months, during which time I was unemployable. I
had to involve my local MP in order to get a response."

But should Patrick's son even have been detained? Could his arrest have been
nothing more than an excuse to gain access to Patrick's house?

The Met went after Kevin on the basis of a vengeful complaint by a jilted
girlfriend, who had previously threatened to go to the police making false
allegations against him.

"The girl had a long history of making false allegations and was known to
Kent Police and social services," Patrick explains.

He points out that his son's name was among hundreds of potential suspects
reported to the police by members of the public, "yet Kevin was the only one
singled out for arrest and unauthorised house search."

Kevin was held at Edmonton Police station overnight. He was released once a
DNA check revealed no link to the high-profile murder case - but the police
refused to wait for the DNA results, as they had done with other suspects,
before invading Patrick's home.

Yet Croydon police should already have had Kevin's DNA profile on file,
since it was taken two years ago in relation to another unfounded crime
allegation.

But it had "mysteriously" disappeared from their database. They then
insisted on repeating the long process of taking fresh samples.

But his angry father does not believe that Kevin's DNA could have just
disappeared and smells a rat. He argues that his son's case made a "strong
argument against claims that new police powers to retain people's DNA - even
if they have not been charged or cautioned - would help 'protect the
innocents'. It certainly did not do that for my son.

"The police fishing expedition was, I believe on the evidence available to
me, a politically motivated and racially driven attempt to criminalise my
son and myself," says Patrick.

As chairman of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Richard Harvey is
more than qualified to comment on the legality of the police raid - and he
considers the whole operation extremely dubious.

Harvey dismisses the police officers' claim that there was no need for a
search warrant. "It seems to me that they acted far outside authority. The
failure to produce a search warrant makes the entire operation highly
suspect and probably illegal."

It was, he adds, "highly irregular and oppressive" for the police to bar
Patrick, who was not under arrest or suspicion, from entering his own house
while the search was going on.

Activist and Irish Democrat online editor activist David Granville agrees
that the police action was "deeply concerning," but he points out that the
police have a long, shameful track record of harassing Irish activists.

"The circumstances seems highly suspicious but are not inconsistent with the
police treatment of Irish human rights activists in the past," he says.

"It appears to me that the police were looking for evidence unrelated to the
murder case. Suspicious police activities of this nature must not go
unnoticed.

"I hope that Mr Reynolds will have the full support of the local MP and
campaigners in exposing the real motives of this fishing operation."

The truth may yet emerge. Kevin is suing the police for wrongful arrest,
while Patrick intends to launch a legal challenge to the raid on his home.
Both are determined to see justice done for the Met's abuse of power.

2 comments:

David Mery said...

Some update on Kevin's story is at DNA retention of unconvicted people.

br -d

Anonymous said...

I know Patrick and his son, Kevin.I feel deeply ashamed of the English. I feel this would not happen if we had a just police system. Where are the English people who would allow this type of behaviour to have happen to a family, especially Patrick, who has spent his life for the welfare of the most vunerable people in english society. All I can say is, shame on you. MMR