THE members of the SPG who are suspected of killing Blair Peach during last year's demonstration against Front in Southall have been exposed in court as a bunch of liars.
the inquest contradicted each other and claimed many lapses of memory. Among the mysteries created by the witnesses were:
The case of the empty van PC Raymond White was the driver of two Beechcrott Avenue area where Blaır was killed. At approximately the time of the murder White said he was driving the van down Beechcroft Avenue. He said he never left the van and was But the other SPG Inspector Hopkins and PC Greville Bint, claimed that they were in the van with White. When White was questioned about this in court he insisted: 'I don't recollect them being there.' The case of the undrawn truncheons Sergeant Alan Lake and PC Anthony Richardson, two SPG members in the vicinity at the time or the killing, said they didn't see any police officer draw a truncheon.
But this heroic attempt to absolve the police fell rather flat when other SPG admitted that they temselves had drawn their cheons. These included Lovell and Inspector Alan Murray. The case of the cul-de-sac Whai happened at the cul-de-sac ai the end of Beechcroft Avenue is vital, for it was around the entrance of the cul-de-sac that Blair was killed.
PC Lovell told the inquest that he chased one demonstrator into the cul-de-sac. PC Richardson admitted to no tet Chabonge National week they police SPG vans in the members, Inspector Alan Murray quest that he managed to 'stop' quarry. Richardson over a wire fence.
Richardson
seen Richardson trunBrian Farler in nonca 11 court members of this group.
The case of the bad memories 22 May 1980 ge 6 have chased two. Lovell told the inThis said two whom he chased escaped by climbing Michael said there were no other police in the cul-de-sac at the time of his chase, Lovell said he had there, but then changed his mind saying he 'coldn't June inquest other witnesses said they had seen seven or eight cops chase people into the cul-de-sac, ebut none of the police quesadmitted to being : A loss-of-memory epidemic seems Sergeant Brian Chapman to have affected the SPG officers who were in Beechwood Avenue.
The worst sufferer was Freestone He 'coldn't remember' who was driving the van he was in, whether it had stopped or slowed down in Beechcroft Avenue whom he had seen when he walked down the street, or whether there was anyone else in the van when he rejoined it. Inspector Alan Murray admitted to a previous memory loss just after the time Blair Peach was killed. In his first statement, made after the demonstration, claimed he had jumped out of the SPG van at the beginning of Beechcroft Avenue the opposite end to where Blair was attacked.
But in court he agreed that three PC Brian Lovell weeks later, in a second statement, he 'remembered' that he had jumped out of the van very near the spot where PC the killing took place.
Other SPG members who 'forgot' about what exactly they were doing in Beechcroft Avenue Lovell and PC James Scottow. The case of the "implements' variety of excuses to explain how various "implements' used by Inspector Murray - came to be found in their lockers SPG safe was there in needed for 'executing rants'. PC Raymond Barnes said that a sledge hammer and a spare handle lend Nic uHded PC America'.
The SPG members offered a wide the words Murray said a jemmy found in his The • case it was search war- hobby' continues.
PC Greville Bint were in his locker because he had taken them to the police station to someone • who wanted to 'knock down a wall'.
PC Raymond White said that a metal cosh and a long whip found in his locker were "sovenirs of a trip to PC George Woodcock claimed that a large American truncheon found in his locker had been given to him by a policeman whom he had stayed when he visited the United States in 1966.
PC Bint, when asked to explain about Nazi regalia, army bayonets and a leather-covered, lead-weighted piece of wood found at his home, said collected • such weapons 'as The inquest, or rather the farce,