375: Michael Menson

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London in January is a particular kind of dark. The
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city doesn't go quiet, but it empties out in a
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different way. In the small hours of a win through morning,
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the bus is thin out, the straights narrow around the
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few people still in them. Eight and a half my
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miles northeast of Chasing Cross lies Edmonton. It's a time
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that most Londoners have driven through without stopping, crossed in transit,
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glimpsed from a bus or the elevated sections of the
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A four O six. It sits in the London borough
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of Enfield, and it isn't a glamorous part of London.
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Edmonton has a long history as a settlement, and by
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the nineteen thirties it had become a popular North shopping destination,
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but the decades that followed weren't kind to it. In
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the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies, the town was substantially redeveloped.
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The old street patterns disrupted, tar blocks erected a large
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indoor shopping center built at Edmonton Green that that pulled
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what retail life remained away from the older roads. By
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the nineteen nineties it was a working class area. Silver Street,
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which ran east to west through Upper Edmonton had once
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been part of the A four oh six before road
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reconfiguration shifted the main traffic flow and left it running
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parallel to the new alignment. The stretch of road now
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called Sterling Way, where Silver Street meets the junction of
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the North Circular carried the through traffic. It wasn't a
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place where you would choose to be alone at nearly
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two in the morning in January. The night of the
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twenty seventh of January nineteen ninety seven was cold. The
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temperature had dropped through the evening, and the straits around
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Sterling Way were largely empty. A driver was coming along
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the North Circular Road that night when he saw flames
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in the distance. As he drew closer, he could see
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a figure on the grass verge at the side of
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the road. It was a man, and he was on fire.
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He was pulling at his own clothing, trying to take
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them from his body, staggering and stumbling in the dark.
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Michael Tachi Manson was born in Moscow in July of
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nineteen sixty six. He was the son of a Ghanian diplomat.
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His father, Alfred Manson, was posted to the Soviet Union
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at the time, and so Michael's earliest years were shaped
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or shaped by the grey corridors of Cold War diplomacy.
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It was a life that was defined by movement, adaptation
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and the particular resilience required of children raised at the
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edges of other countries. Alfred's work took the family across
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a number of different countries before they eventually settled in
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the United Kingdom in nineteen sixty eight, when Michael was
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just two years old. He was the seventh of eleven children,
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and by all accounts, the Menson household was a close one.
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As one sibling would later recall, they were a quiet
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family in their way. They didn't do a great deal
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outside the home, but they entertained each other. Michael's sister
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Essie roma for a long time, we only spoke gannion
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at home. It was also a religious household. My mother
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was a Methodist, so we all went to church and
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we all sang in the choir. The siblings became accomplished
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choristers and joined the English National Opera, touring the country
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performing in productions of Dare Rose and Cavalier. Michael's brother
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Quezi remembered it was a first real experience of London,
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being up in the city, being up there at night.
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Michael did well at school. He studied a levels of
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Brent College and went on to obtain higher national qualifications
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in microelectronics at Middlesex Polytechnic. He was bright, and quiet
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and diligent, and for a time it seemed to his
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future lay somewhere in the orderly world of engineering and electronics.
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But London in the late nineteen eighties had other ideas.
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It was during Michael's college years that the dance and
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Ray of Seine began to quietly run through the Capitol,
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and Michael's love for dance music was born. He became
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a regular DJ, drawn into a world that felt very
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different from the one he had been raised in. Alongside
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his friends Carl Brown and Lee Guest, he formed a
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group called Double Trouble. They were producers and DJs in
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the hip house scene, and they caught the attention of
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the Desired label. Their collaborations with the Rebel MC produced
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two records that broke through in nineteen eighty nine, Just
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Keep Rocking, which reached number eleven on the UK Singles charts,
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and Street Tuff, which climbed to number three and became
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the biggest hit of their careers. Street Toff also became
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a top ten hit across several European countries. The three
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men traveled around Europe, and they appeared on Top of
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the Pops, performing on a stage that millions of households
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tuned into every Thursday evening. Michael's family was surprised and delighted.
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His sister Essie later recalled watching him in those moments
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and being struck by how alive her brother seemed, how
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inclusive and joyful. Michael wanted his success to include the family,
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she said. He wanted to make sure the music career
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he was building was still in line with who they were,
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with their values. She remembered herself and some of the
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siblings going to his recordings. She said Mike felt very
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strongly about getting recognition, not just for himself, but for
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the whole family. He saw himself as a representative of
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his culture. Double Trouble released their debut album as One,
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which spawned further singles including Don't Give Up and Take Back,
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but the momentum that had carried them into the charts
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began to slow, as it so often does. The recession
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hit in the early nineteen nineties, and their last track
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made it only to sixty six in the charts. They
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spoke about a set second album, but it never materialized.
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The band then broke up in nineteen ninety three. For Michael,
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the years that followed were difficult ones. He suffered a
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mental breakdown and was subsequently diagnosed and traded for schizophrenia.
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The condition was serious and unpredictable, and it changed the
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shape of his life considerably. From nineteen ninety one onwards,
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he was in and out of hospital and his social
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world contracted around him. He was sad and confused by it,
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one family member said, desperate to get back on track,
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always apologizing, but his sister said that he was always
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determined that his mental health problems would not defeat him.
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He remained close to his family throughout all of it.
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Not much never changed whatever the illness had taken from him,
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the career, the certainty, the forward momentum of a young
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man who had once stood on a BBC stage at
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the age of twenty two. It didn't take that. Over
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Christmas nineteen ninety six, Michael stayed with family members. When
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he left them after the holiday, they described him as
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upbeat and lively. It was the last Christmas the family
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would ever spend together. The night of the twenty seventh
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of January ninety ninety seven was cold. Michael had been
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given lee from Chase Farm Hospital and he was staying
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at Holden Lodge, a supported housing unit in North London
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where he had recently moved. That night, at about ten pm,
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his sister Cha phound him to tell him a message
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had come through from the hospital. He was needed back
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for a ward round. It was a routine thing. Michael
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had made the journey countless times. So he left Holden
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Lodge and he caught a bus somewhere along the way. However,
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he boarded the wrong bus. He ended up getting off
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in Edmonton, in North London, not where he was meant
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to be. There were four men on the bus. One
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of them had been wearing a black leather jacket. When
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Michael got off the bus, they followed him. He remembered
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leaning on the gates of a church and then he
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felt something on his back. They had robbed him first,
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then doused him inflammable liquid and set him on fire.
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Michael managed to stagger more than three hundred and fifty
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yards while on fire before collapsing semi conscious on the street.
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He had ripped off all his burning clothing and left
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behind a trail of charred flesh and clothing. At around
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one forty in the morning, an off Judy firefighter was
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driving home along the North Circular Road when he came
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across a man burning at the roadside near the junction
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of Sterling Way and Silver Street. He stopped immediately, dampened
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out the flames and called nine one one. Michael had
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sustained full thickness third degree burns to thirty percent of
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his body, his black, his bodocks, his upper thighs. He
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was in severe shock. An ambulance arrived and Michael was
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taken to North Middlesex Hospital before being transferred to the
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Regional Burns Unit at a nearby hospital where the severity
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of his injuries could be better treated. But then something
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went wrong, not with Michael's treatment, but with everything around it.
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The two police officers who had attended the scene didn't
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treat the circumstances of Michael's discovery as suspicious. They assumed,
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without investigation that Michael had set fire to himself. He
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told them that he had been attacked. The officers left
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the same when Michael was taken the hospital. They didn't
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cordon off the area, they didn't preserve the crime scene.
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They said in motion, no investigation whatsoever. Because Michael was
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a psychiatric patient. The police had concluded that the injuries
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must have been self inflicted. That assumption had been made
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in the dark at the roadside in minutes, and it
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would prove extraordinarily difficult to dislodge. Meanwhile, at the hospital,
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Michael was conscious. He underwent skin grafts and operations. His brother, Quessy,
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was able to visit him in the hospital. He found
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Michael lying on his back in his hospital bed, awake,
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alert and lucid. Michael told them he had been attacked
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by some boys near a phone box. He had tried
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to put himself out. He had rolled around on the ground.
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He then asked his brother, why did they do this
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to me? Despite the pain and the trauma, Michael appeared
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to be optimistic about his recovery. Michael's brother telephoned Edmonton
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Police station that same morning and told them what Michael
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had said, that he had been attacked by four white boys.
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That evening, another sibling called the hospital and spoke with
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Michael directly. He was in pain, but he was coherent.
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He described the boss, four white boys, the one in
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the black leather jacket. The family told the police. In hospital,
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Michael repeated the same account to nurses. He told at
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least six people he had been set on fire by others.
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A policewoman he spoke to at the scene didn't pass
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that information to anybody for a fortnight. At no point
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did Detective Inspector Williams or any other officer take a
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formal statement from Michael Manson, despite the fact that he
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was alive and speaking and asking to be heard. The
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family begged police to take a statement from him. They refused.
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The police didn't coordin off the area where Michael had
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been attacked. There were no forensic clues to recover because
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no one had thought to preserve them. On the morning
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of the third of February, Michael seemed cheerful and relatively well,
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but later that day he developed septisamia, He suffered a
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heart attack, and then he fell into a coma. Ten
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days later, Michael was dead. The Menson family were repeatedly
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told that Michael had set fire to himself. They didn't
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accept it. Initially, police told them that they had so
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many leads they didn't need to do any public appeals.
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The family's grief was compounded by the police's apparent unwillingness
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to hunt Michael's killers. As one of his sisters put it,
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the things they failed to do were so wilful and
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so blatant that it just has to be wilfully deciding
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not to take appropriate action. Letters between police and solicitors
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made it clear that officers still perceived the incident as
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self inflicted and felt that no crime had occurred. This
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was despite the fact that their own far expert described
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the evidence as suspicious. A forensic scientist who specialized in
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fire investigations, James Munday, had told police at an early
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stage that they should be treating the circumstances as suspicious.
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The family submitted a formal complaint to the Police Complaints authority.
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They pushed, they organized, They refused to be moved. His
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sister Alex remarked in the media, Michael was a gentle,
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placid and caring person. He died in the most painful
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and god astly whay. In March, police finally announced that
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they were training Michael's death as a murder. They claimed
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they had begun an investigation in twelve hours after Michael
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was found on fire. They eventually had cordoned off the scene,
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but yet they still believed that it was self inflicted. Nevertheless,
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they appealed to the public for any information. Scotland Yard said,
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it has now become clear that mister Manson was already
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on fire several minutes when he was found. They admitted
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that they never interviewed Michael before he died. This posed
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a significant problem. Unlike formal police statements, statements to family
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wouldn't have as much weight in a courtroom. Michael's family, meanwhile,
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were searching for their own clues. They launched a local
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leaflet campaign. Alex said, we know it was late, but
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surely someone must have seen or heard something, maybe a
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passing motorist. We're still pleading with anyone who can help
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us to do so. The family's liflet campaign drew some attention,
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but the silence that surrounded Michael's death was beginning to fail,
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less like an absence of witnesses and more like an
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absence of will. It was impossible by the spring of
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nineteen ninety seven to look at the men's in case
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and not see the shadow of another case that was
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falling across it. Four years earlier, eighteen year old Stephen
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Lawrence had been stabbed to death at a bus stop
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in Eltham, Southeast London by a gang of white youths.
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The investigation that followed had been marred by a series
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of failures, and for years his family had campaigned against
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a wall of official indifference. Racist attacks against young black
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men had been increasing in London throughout the early nineties,
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and anger towards the Metropolitan Police had been building steadily.
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The parallels between the two cases weren't abstract, they were structural.
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A young black man had been killed in a racist attack,
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the police had failed to act with urgency or competence.
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The family had been left to push for answers themselves.
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Every mistake and assumption made by the Metropolitan Police in
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the Lawrence case had been repeated in the Menson case.
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Same institution, same failures, different victim, different family left to
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carry the weight of it. The Mensons later said that
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officers refused to give them basic information about what had
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happened to Michael, or any news of how the investigation
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was processing, as in the Lawrence case. They dismissed the
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police's family lays on as little more than tea and sympathy.
250
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One of Michael's sisters described the experience plainly, It felt
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like police were saying you don't matter, and Michael doesn't matter.
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That's what drove us on. The Menson family pushed on regardless.
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They kept the case visible in any way that they could,
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and through the spring and summer of nineteen ninety seven
255
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they waited for something to break. Nothing did. Then, in
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October of nineteen ninety seven, another young man died in
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London following a racist attack. Lack Vin der Reil, known
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as Ricky, was twenty years old and a student at
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Brunel University. He had been with friends in Kingston upon
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Thames Town Center when they were racially abused. His friends
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were able to regroup, but Ricky never did. Seven days later,
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his body was recovered from the River Thames. The Metropolitan
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Police deemed the racist attack unrelated to his death and
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initially closed the case as an accidental death. Three racist attacks,
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three young men, three investigations undermined from the start by
266
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the same assumptions, the same dismissals, the same institution. Anger
267
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towards the Metropolitan Police was becoming palpable across London. The
268
00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:05.839
Lawrence case had exposed the rot the Menson and Rail
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cases were making clear that nothing had changed. By the
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end of nineteen ninety seven, the Menson family were no
271
00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:23.000
closer to answers than they had been the mourning that
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00:19:23.039 --> 00:19:28.279
Michael was attacked. The investigation remained, in all practical terms,
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00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:32.039
a suicide inquiry, wearing the clothing of a murder one.
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The police had continued to do very little. In August
275
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of nineteen ninety eight, Scotland Yard announced they were going
276
00:19:39.279 --> 00:19:42.839
to re examine unsolved murder cases and unexplained deaths with
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00:19:42.920 --> 00:19:46.319
a possible racist motive. This decision had been made in
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00:19:46.359 --> 00:19:49.319
the wake of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, which found that
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00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:53.920
the Metropolitan Police's initial investigation into his murder was marred
280
00:19:53.920 --> 00:19:58.960
by professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership.
281
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One of the kese they were going to be investigating
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00:20:02.200 --> 00:20:06.079
was Michael Manson's murder. They set up a one million
283
00:20:06.119 --> 00:20:11.519
pound task force. Local communities were briefed on confidential aspects
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00:20:11.640 --> 00:20:15.720
of the murder cases. An advisory group was created to
285
00:20:15.799 --> 00:20:20.000
advise on race matters. Assistant Commissioner Dennis O'Connor, who was
286
00:20:20.039 --> 00:20:24.480
in charge announced the Lorn's inquiry has raised the question
287
00:20:24.680 --> 00:20:27.799
of whether racism played a part and that is sufficient
288
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for us to think we have to operate differently in
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00:20:30.559 --> 00:20:34.559
the future. The following month, it was announced that four
290
00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:39.960
senior Scotland Yard officers were under investigation. The four officers
291
00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:43.160
under investigation were those who had handled the initial response
292
00:20:43.599 --> 00:20:45.839
to Michael's attack in the early hours of the twenty
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seventh of January nineteen ninety seven. They were the officers
294
00:20:50.160 --> 00:20:52.960
who had stood at the roadside, looked at a burning
295
00:20:53.039 --> 00:20:56.400
human being and then decided he had done it to himself.
296
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Their decisions in those first hours had shaped everything that followed.
297
00:21:01.799 --> 00:21:05.039
The loss of the crime scene, the absence of forensic evidence,
298
00:21:05.599 --> 00:21:08.799
the failure to take a statement from a conscious, speaking
299
00:21:09.279 --> 00:21:12.680
yet dying man. The police had been working against the
300
00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:21.759
family from the very beginning. The inquest opened at Hornsey
301
00:21:21.839 --> 00:21:25.319
Coroner's Court on the seventh of September nineteen ninety eight.
302
00:21:26.680 --> 00:21:30.279
The questions before the jury were stark. Had Michael Manson
303
00:21:30.319 --> 00:21:33.799
been failed by the police because of racist assumptions made
304
00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:37.599
from the moment to first contact. Had the officers approached
305
00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:40.799
him the same way officers had approached the Stephen Lawn's case.
306
00:21:42.039 --> 00:21:44.599
What if Michael Manson had been white? Would he have
307
00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:48.799
been treated differently? Throughout the proceedings, the police pushed to
308
00:21:48.839 --> 00:21:52.240
convince the jury that Michael had set fire to himself,
309
00:21:52.920 --> 00:21:56.240
even as every piece of evidence that emerged pointed in
310
00:21:56.279 --> 00:22:01.400
the other direction. Detective Chief Inspector Robert Scott said that
311
00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:05.079
there was an even circumstantial evidence to support that Michael
312
00:22:05.079 --> 00:22:09.759
had been attacked. He said, not one witness of any
313
00:22:09.799 --> 00:22:13.119
substance has been found. We have found no evidence to
314
00:22:13.160 --> 00:22:17.440
consider a prosecution of any kind. They went so far
315
00:22:17.519 --> 00:22:21.240
as to challenge their own witness. One of those witnesses
316
00:22:21.359 --> 00:22:26.920
was James Monday, a forensic scientist specializing in foreign explosion investigations.
317
00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:30.960
Monday testified that the nature of the burns found on Michael,
318
00:22:31.440 --> 00:22:34.240
the way the flames had spread was consistent with his
319
00:22:34.359 --> 00:22:37.759
jacket having been ignited by a naked flame while he
320
00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:41.279
was lying face down. He told the inquest that while
321
00:22:41.319 --> 00:22:44.599
he couldn't entirely eliminate the possibility that Michael had lit
322
00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:47.240
the back of his own clothing, to do so while
323
00:22:47.319 --> 00:22:50.799
lying down would have been unique in his professional experience.
324
00:22:52.119 --> 00:22:54.839
The scenario that police had maintained for over a year
325
00:22:55.160 --> 00:22:57.559
the one they had told the family, the coroner and
326
00:22:57.599 --> 00:23:02.880
the press was quite possibly physical implausible. Monday also told
327
00:23:02.920 --> 00:23:06.400
the inquest that at the very early stage of his investigation,
328
00:23:07.039 --> 00:23:09.799
he had informed the police that in his view, the
329
00:23:09.880 --> 00:23:14.480
circumstances should be treated as suspicious. The police had been
330
00:23:14.519 --> 00:23:18.400
told it, yet they did nothing with it. A week
331
00:23:18.440 --> 00:23:23.000
before the inquest opened, Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Townsend had
332
00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:27.839
written to the family staring, despite a very thorough investigation,
333
00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:31.160
we are still uncertain about how Michael came to be
334
00:23:31.240 --> 00:23:34.680
found on far. The letter arrived while the family was
335
00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:38.680
preparing to finally have a jury hear the truth. During
336
00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:43.279
the inquest, consultant psychiatrist doctor Rajiev Sharma said that he
337
00:23:43.279 --> 00:23:47.119
had diagnosed Michael as schizophrenic, but said he wouldn't have
338
00:23:47.119 --> 00:23:50.759
said he was a major suicide risk. He said that
339
00:23:50.799 --> 00:23:54.240
Michael had spoken about suicide in the past and said
340
00:23:54.279 --> 00:23:57.519
that ghosts had suggested he'd take his own life, but
341
00:23:57.559 --> 00:24:01.200
he was adamant he would never hurt himself. He had said,
342
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:04.599
I haven't got it in me, I couldn't do it.
343
00:24:05.079 --> 00:24:08.880
I want to live. On the sixteenth of September, nineteen
344
00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:12.160
ninety eight, After just over a week of evidence, the
345
00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:16.359
jury at Hornsey Coroner's Court returned a unanimous verdict of
346
00:24:16.559 --> 00:24:22.799
unlawful killing. Michael's family wept and hugged one another. They
347
00:24:22.839 --> 00:24:25.640
immediately demanded to know why police had waited so long
348
00:24:25.920 --> 00:24:31.079
before deciding to investigate. Guensie said, how is it that
349
00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:33.359
a black man tells a number of police when he
350
00:24:33.400 --> 00:24:36.599
has found on fire that he has been attacked, and
351
00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:40.160
it takes twelve hours before an initial investigation is attempted.
352
00:24:41.079 --> 00:24:44.720
Despite the findings, the coroner, doctor William Dolman, said the
353
00:24:44.759 --> 00:24:49.000
police shouldn't be blamed for failing to find Michael's killers.
354
00:24:50.240 --> 00:24:54.039
The reactions from sections of the police was immediate and reveiling.
355
00:24:55.559 --> 00:24:58.079
D C I Scott, who had led the original investigation,
356
00:24:58.680 --> 00:25:00.920
gave an interview to Channel five News on the day
357
00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:05.119
of the verdict and said that despite everything, he still
358
00:25:05.160 --> 00:25:09.799
believed that Michael had killed himself. A representative from the
359
00:25:09.799 --> 00:25:14.359
Police Federation, Mike Bennett, who hadn't attended the inquest and
360
00:25:14.440 --> 00:25:19.000
hadn't heard any of the evidence, criticized the verdict. He
361
00:25:19.079 --> 00:25:22.400
alleged that the family had crowded out the proceedings and
362
00:25:22.480 --> 00:25:27.039
intimidated the coroner and said that the whole thing stinks.
363
00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:33.279
The family solicitor, Mike Schwartz, was also interviewed. He pointed
364
00:25:33.279 --> 00:25:36.319
out that Mike Bennett had been proven wrong and that
365
00:25:36.400 --> 00:25:40.680
he hadn't even been present for the evidence. Bennett then
366
00:25:40.680 --> 00:25:45.759
criticized Schwartz and insulted the family. As for the four
367
00:25:45.759 --> 00:25:51.160
Scotland Yard officers under investigation, they were given words of advice.
368
00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:55.400
In the hours after the verdict, the Metropolitan Police issued
369
00:25:55.400 --> 00:25:59.400
a statement admitting that serious mistakes had been made, but
370
00:25:59.519 --> 00:26:03.519
confined their admission to the first twelve hours of the investigation.
371
00:26:05.359 --> 00:26:10.880
Michael's sister later reflected on that phase sixteen months of
372
00:26:10.920 --> 00:26:15.400
a man lying dead, no arrests, no crime scene, no
373
00:26:15.480 --> 00:26:19.960
statement ever taken, and the institution responsible had chosen to
374
00:26:20.039 --> 00:26:24.319
draw a line at twelve rs. It was as though
375
00:26:24.400 --> 00:26:27.640
everything that had followed those twelve rs had been acceptable.
376
00:26:28.519 --> 00:26:48.440
It wasn't.
377
00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:44.680
That verdict forced the Metropolitan Police's hand. They could no
378
00:26:44.759 --> 00:26:48.599
longer maintain publicly or legally that Michael had set fire
379
00:26:48.680 --> 00:26:52.799
to himself. Now the institution that had spent almost two
380
00:26:52.920 --> 00:26:57.839
years obstructing the truth was required to find that. The
381
00:26:57.880 --> 00:27:01.480
family solicitor wrote to Home Secretary Jack Straw and a
382
00:27:01.519 --> 00:27:06.240
meeting followed. Operation Chichester was created and the case was
383
00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:09.079
handed to the Racial and Violent Crimes Task Force at
384
00:27:09.079 --> 00:27:14.160
Scotland Yard for reinvestigation. Understandably, the family didn't want the
385
00:27:14.200 --> 00:27:19.319
Metropolitan Police handling the case. The existing inquiry was halted
386
00:27:19.359 --> 00:27:23.759
while the new investigation got underway. At an initial meeting
387
00:27:23.799 --> 00:27:28.240
between the family and senior officers, Deputy Commissioner John Stevens
388
00:27:28.279 --> 00:27:32.000
issued a formal apology on behalf of the Metropolitan Police.
389
00:27:33.400 --> 00:27:35.599
It was the first apology the family had received in
390
00:27:35.640 --> 00:27:40.200
almost two years. The new investigation was led by Deputy
391
00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:43.759
Assistant Commissioner John Grave, the head of the Racial and
392
00:27:43.839 --> 00:27:47.559
Violent Crimes Task Force. For the first time, police openly
393
00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:51.079
stated that Michael's death was being investigated as a racially
394
00:27:51.119 --> 00:27:56.680
motivated attack and that a number of suspects had been identified.
395
00:27:58.200 --> 00:28:02.400
That shift in language was significant. It was an acknowledgment
396
00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:05.240
that had been withheld from the family since the night
397
00:28:05.319 --> 00:28:09.839
Michael was found. Gravesteam began by going back through the
398
00:28:09.839 --> 00:28:13.599
two hundred statements that had been collected during the initial investigation.
399
00:28:15.039 --> 00:28:19.400
What they found was damning. The statements had never been
400
00:28:19.400 --> 00:28:22.960
properly assessed and hadn't been entered into the Homes Police
401
00:28:23.039 --> 00:28:28.519
database correctly. Because of the original suicide assumption, no one
402
00:28:28.519 --> 00:28:33.000
had treated them as material to a murder inquiry. Now
403
00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:36.440
working through them properly for the first time, a pattern
404
00:28:36.599 --> 00:28:41.599
began to emerge. One witness said she saw Michael attacked
405
00:28:41.599 --> 00:28:45.920
in Kendall Parade and then chased to nearby Silver Street.
406
00:28:47.440 --> 00:28:51.599
The investigation had focused on Kendall Parade, where Michael was found.
407
00:28:53.039 --> 00:28:56.000
Detectives learned about a group of three individuals who lived
408
00:28:56.039 --> 00:28:59.960
close to where Michael had been attacked, and one name
409
00:29:00.160 --> 00:29:05.640
kept appearing, given by different witnesses at different times, independently
410
00:29:05.680 --> 00:29:09.160
of one another, to a d six year old Harry
411
00:29:09.240 --> 00:29:13.920
constantinou In January of nineteen ninety nine, Michael's family were
412
00:29:13.960 --> 00:29:18.599
invited to appear on BBC one's Crime Watch, but.
413
00:29:18.759 --> 00:29:22.160
At his inquest the coroner recorded unlawful killing and the
414
00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:25.319
case was passed to the Met's new Racial and Violent
415
00:29:25.400 --> 00:29:28.160
Crime Unit. Michael's brother and sister are here along with
416
00:29:28.200 --> 00:29:33.160
the Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Greeb Crazy. I know that
417
00:29:33.279 --> 00:29:35.359
you were with your brother in hospital two weeks after
418
00:29:35.359 --> 00:29:37.880
the incident. He died two weeks later, you managed to
419
00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:40.000
get a bit of information from him. What did he
420
00:29:40.039 --> 00:29:40.359
tell you?
421
00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:43.680
Michael was able to tell us that he had been
422
00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:47.599
on a bus and taken the underground in Edmonton at night,
423
00:29:47.799 --> 00:29:49.839
and he may have been followed by three or four
424
00:29:49.880 --> 00:29:53.359
white youths, and that he was attacked by the iss
425
00:29:53.359 --> 00:29:58.759
youths near some phone boxes by sweep by Sweetbriar walk.
426
00:30:00.039 --> 00:30:01.839
Explain how he was attacked, what happened.
427
00:30:02.839 --> 00:30:05.680
He said that Michael was a very very quiet and
428
00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:09.400
peaceful and family centered man. And he said he didn't
429
00:30:09.400 --> 00:30:12.240
approach them, He didn't say anything to them. They had
430
00:30:12.279 --> 00:30:14.240
attacked him totally unprovoked.
431
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:15.440
What else did he tell you?
432
00:30:15.839 --> 00:30:19.039
He asked me why did they do this to him?
433
00:30:19.720 --> 00:30:21.839
So you say he was a very quiet man. Was
434
00:30:21.880 --> 00:30:22.480
he aloner?
435
00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:26.480
He was just quiet and he was happy to be
436
00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:28.759
him with his family and his friends.
437
00:30:29.359 --> 00:30:30.960
So it was an unprovoked attack.
438
00:30:31.160 --> 00:30:32.440
It was totally unprovoked.
439
00:30:32.480 --> 00:30:37.599
Yes, Michael's siblings sat alongside Grave and made a direct
440
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:42.680
appeal to the public for information. Witnesses started to come forward.
441
00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:47.759
Lindon Nagan said that twenty five year old Mario Parira
442
00:30:48.039 --> 00:30:49.960
had told him that he was in a car with
443
00:30:50.079 --> 00:30:54.599
Constantinou and twenty four year old Osgae Sivat when they
444
00:30:54.599 --> 00:31:00.799
poured flammable liquid over Michael. Another witness, Baljittsuki, said that
445
00:31:00.839 --> 00:31:03.119
Perira had told him the attack was meant to be
446
00:31:03.160 --> 00:31:07.359
a joke. In March of nineteen ninety nine, the family
447
00:31:07.400 --> 00:31:11.160
and campaigners leaflighted the area where the suspects were known
448
00:31:11.200 --> 00:31:16.240
to live, appealing for further witnesses to come forward. It
449
00:31:16.319 --> 00:31:19.160
was a kind of grassroots persistence the family had maintained
450
00:31:19.160 --> 00:31:25.759
since the very beginning. Detectives put Constantinou under surveillance. They
451
00:31:25.799 --> 00:31:29.519
watched him, they followed him, and then, having built en
452
00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:32.599
off of a picture of his movements and associates, they
453
00:31:32.640 --> 00:31:37.480
applied for authorization to go further. A listening device was
454
00:31:37.519 --> 00:31:42.759
planted inside Constantinou's flat. What followed over the weeks that
455
00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:46.000
the bog was active was a window into the private
456
00:31:46.079 --> 00:31:48.880
world of men who had believed for over two years
457
00:31:49.720 --> 00:31:53.519
that they had gotten away with it. They spoke freely.
458
00:31:54.400 --> 00:31:57.279
They had no reason not to the police had told
459
00:31:57.319 --> 00:32:00.559
them as much, not in words, but in everything failed
460
00:32:00.599 --> 00:32:05.640
to do. Since January nineteen ninety seven, the recordings captured
461
00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:11.720
Constantinu and Perira. Discussing the murder, they referred to Michael
462
00:32:12.079 --> 00:32:17.240
as the burned geezer. Perira voiced concern about whether forensic
463
00:32:17.279 --> 00:32:21.319
evidence could link him to the crime. He appeared nervous
464
00:32:21.319 --> 00:32:24.400
as he said, they can find out whether I touched
465
00:32:24.480 --> 00:32:27.759
him from my clothing, if my clothing touched against him.
466
00:32:28.920 --> 00:32:34.519
Constantino reassured him they can't prove nothing. And when the
467
00:32:34.559 --> 00:32:37.000
subject of what they had done to Michael came up,
468
00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:43.640
Perreira's response was recorded clearly so what he was black.
469
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:48.279
It was the same logic that had animated the attack,
470
00:32:49.319 --> 00:32:53.720
the same logic that had for two years animated the investigation.
471
00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:59.920
In another conversation, Constantinu reflected on what had happened. He said,
472
00:33:00.920 --> 00:33:03.920
I told them not to do it. He was walking along,
473
00:33:04.200 --> 00:33:06.759
he had his head down, he was dragging his feet.
474
00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:09.960
They approached him. I got out of the car and
475
00:33:10.039 --> 00:33:14.400
I goes to them, leave him alone, Leave the gazer alone.
476
00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:18.279
Mario kept going on about he's a black, let's burn
477
00:33:18.359 --> 00:33:22.559
him and all that. What could I do. What the
478
00:33:22.599 --> 00:33:26.599
recordings also confirmed, and what Operation Chichester's review of the
479
00:33:26.599 --> 00:33:30.880
original statements had already begun to suggest, was the sequence
480
00:33:30.920 --> 00:33:33.319
of events on the night of the twenty seventh of
481
00:33:33.400 --> 00:33:38.559
January nineteen ninety seven. Conflicting accounts exist as to whether
482
00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:41.240
the group were on the same boss as Michael or
483
00:33:41.359 --> 00:33:46.599
arrived separately. Michael believed they were on the bus, however,
484
00:33:46.599 --> 00:33:52.559
they came across him. What followed was deliberate and premeditated. Pereira,
485
00:33:52.720 --> 00:33:56.079
Savad and Constantin, who came across Michael alone that night,
486
00:33:57.480 --> 00:34:00.759
they hurled racist abuse at him before or assaulting him
487
00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:04.880
and stealing his bag and walkman. Parira and Savat then
488
00:34:04.920 --> 00:34:07.640
made an initial attempt to set Michael on fire, but
489
00:34:07.720 --> 00:34:11.639
they failed. The three men then went back to Perreira's
490
00:34:11.679 --> 00:34:15.960
home nearby and picked up some white spirit They then
491
00:34:16.039 --> 00:34:19.639
returned to the area to look for Michael. When they
492
00:34:19.679 --> 00:34:23.639
found him, Paria poured an acceleran over Michael's blue an
493
00:34:23.760 --> 00:34:29.920
iraq Sevat lit it. Michael was on fire. He staggered
494
00:34:29.960 --> 00:34:32.440
to a telephone box on Sterling Way and tried to
495
00:34:32.480 --> 00:34:36.239
press himself against the perspects doors to smother the flames.
496
00:34:37.519 --> 00:34:40.519
The fire was so intense that it partially melted the perspects.
497
00:34:41.599 --> 00:34:45.199
He couldn't put the flames out, so he ran. He
498
00:34:45.280 --> 00:34:47.760
left a trail of burnt flesh and clothing behind him
499
00:34:47.760 --> 00:34:51.199
on the pavement as he went running down Silver Street,
500
00:34:51.280 --> 00:34:54.360
pulling at his clothes trying to get them off his body.
501
00:34:55.760 --> 00:34:59.280
That was where the off duty firefighter found him on
502
00:34:59.320 --> 00:35:04.320
a grass form mege, still burning, still fighting for his life.
503
00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:07.400
The three men who had done it walked away. One
504
00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:10.199
of them, Osgae Sivat, left the country within days of
505
00:35:10.239 --> 00:35:14.400
the attack. He fled to North Cyprus, where he had family,
506
00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.119
apparently confident that the distance would be enough. The United
507
00:35:19.199 --> 00:35:22.639
Kingdom had no extradition agreement with the Turkish shiprate authorities,
508
00:35:24.280 --> 00:35:28.519
him would depend entirely on cooperation, on goodwill, on the
509
00:35:28.559 --> 00:35:32.960
willingness of another jurisdiction to act, where the Metropolitan Police
510
00:35:33.000 --> 00:35:46.559
had not. Back in North London, the recordings from Constantinu's
511
00:35:46.599 --> 00:35:50.440
flat had given Graves to him what they needed. On
512
00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:54.079
the ninth of March nineteen ninety nine, Harry Constantinou and
513
00:35:54.199 --> 00:35:59.960
Mario Pereira were arrested and taken to Edmonton Police Station. Constantine,
514
00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:02.920
he knew when he was interviewed, admitted to having taken
515
00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:07.480
part in the attack on Michael, but denied murder Parira,
516
00:36:07.639 --> 00:36:11.119
even when the recordings were played to him directly denied
517
00:36:11.159 --> 00:36:15.280
any involvement at all. Another man, fifty year old, who
518
00:36:15.360 --> 00:36:19.480
say In Abdullah, was also arrested. He hadn't been present
519
00:36:19.559 --> 00:36:22.639
during the attack itself, but was charged with perverting the
520
00:36:22.679 --> 00:36:25.880
course of justice for his role in obstructing the inquiry
521
00:36:25.960 --> 00:36:29.480
in the years that followed. He knew about the murder,
522
00:36:30.039 --> 00:36:32.400
he had been recorded speaking about it in the flat,
523
00:36:32.960 --> 00:36:37.360
yet he didn't go to police. Constantino and Perira were
524
00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:42.480
charged with murder. Three men were behind bars, but detectives
525
00:36:42.519 --> 00:36:46.280
weren't finished with the fourth. In Cyprus, detectives moved to
526
00:36:46.280 --> 00:36:50.719
bring Savat to justice through a different route. Entirely senior
527
00:36:50.760 --> 00:36:53.800
British officers delivered copies of all their paperwork to the
528
00:36:53.800 --> 00:36:58.760
Cypriate authorities. Thirteen witnesses traveled to Cyprus for the preliminary
529
00:36:58.800 --> 00:37:02.920
hearing and gave out evidence at the actual trial. It
530
00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:06.000
also emerged that by the time UK detectives contacted the
531
00:37:06.039 --> 00:37:10.559
Cypriate police, Savat was already on their radar. He had not,
532
00:37:10.639 --> 00:37:15.000
it turned out, been invisible. He'd simply been somewhere no
533
00:37:15.079 --> 00:37:18.519
one had thought to look, or no one bothered to look.
534
00:37:19.280 --> 00:37:22.519
He was charged with murder on the eleventh of August,
535
00:37:23.880 --> 00:37:26.960
and in November of nineteen ninety nine, Ozgae Savatt was
536
00:37:26.960 --> 00:37:30.480
found guilty in a Cypriot court and sentenced to fourteen
537
00:37:30.559 --> 00:37:34.840
years imprisonment for manslaughter. Details of that trial are not
538
00:37:34.920 --> 00:37:39.440
publicly available. By the time Savat was convicted, a preliminary
539
00:37:39.440 --> 00:37:42.920
hearing had already determined there was enough evidence against Perreira
540
00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:46.239
and Constantino for them to stand trial for Michael's murder.
541
00:37:47.280 --> 00:37:50.119
There was also enough evidence for Abdullah to stand trial
542
00:37:50.239 --> 00:37:53.800
for perverting the course of justice. All three men pleaded
543
00:37:53.880 --> 00:37:57.639
not guilty. The trial began on the sixteenth of November
544
00:37:57.800 --> 00:38:02.079
nineteen ninety nine in the Old Bailey. Prosecutor Nigel Swaeney
545
00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:05.239
told the court that Perere had told detectives that they
546
00:38:05.280 --> 00:38:08.039
attacked Michael because he looked like a man who had
547
00:38:08.079 --> 00:38:13.079
spoken to Perier's girlfriend. Savat had told detectives that Pereer
548
00:38:13.119 --> 00:38:16.559
had been railing against black people after he was too
549
00:38:16.599 --> 00:38:19.840
scared to intervene when a black man flirted with his girlfriend.
550
00:38:21.239 --> 00:38:23.960
He described how the police officers arrived at the scene
551
00:38:24.039 --> 00:38:28.599
and found Michael. He said, at first he appeared to
552
00:38:28.599 --> 00:38:31.280
be in a trance like state, and it was thought
553
00:38:31.320 --> 00:38:34.639
by some in particular the two police officers who came
554
00:38:34.679 --> 00:38:37.440
to the scene that he had set fire to himself.
555
00:38:38.400 --> 00:38:42.000
The prosecutor detailed the events of that night, the men
556
00:38:42.079 --> 00:38:46.480
setting Michael on fire and stealing his belongings. He then
557
00:38:46.559 --> 00:38:49.840
spoke about the recordings from inside the flat, describing how
558
00:38:49.880 --> 00:38:52.400
Perier had talked about murder in a light hearted way,
559
00:38:53.119 --> 00:38:57.800
how he said so what he was black. The prosecutor
560
00:38:57.840 --> 00:39:00.360
told the courtroom that Constantinou claimed he had been in
561
00:39:00.360 --> 00:39:03.679
the car while Perira and Savat sat Michael on fire.
562
00:39:04.840 --> 00:39:08.519
He said they disappeared around the corner and then returned laughing.
563
00:39:09.920 --> 00:39:13.559
Prosecutor Sweeney said, we say you can reject this claim
564
00:39:13.599 --> 00:39:16.239
that he wasn't party to the killing. He was with
565
00:39:16.360 --> 00:39:20.880
them before he took the personal stereo. According to the
566
00:39:20.920 --> 00:39:24.239
defense team during their opening statements, detectives were under so
567
00:39:24.360 --> 00:39:27.480
much pressure from the Stephen Lawrence case that they could
568
00:39:27.559 --> 00:39:32.719
have produced inaccurate and unreliable evidence to accuse innocent men
569
00:39:32.800 --> 00:39:37.079
of murder. Defense attorney Peter Thornton said that Perreira wasn't
570
00:39:37.119 --> 00:39:39.719
in the area and took no part in the attack.
571
00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:43.880
He even said that Michael was a classic candidate for
572
00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:48.920
suicide because he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. He
573
00:39:48.960 --> 00:39:51.320
claimed that the quality of the recordings where the men
574
00:39:51.400 --> 00:39:55.719
spoke about the murder was per with background noise. The
575
00:39:55.760 --> 00:39:59.679
testimony got underway with various witnesses testifying about what Michael
576
00:39:59.719 --> 00:40:03.800
told them in the hospital. His friend is Egiel testified
577
00:40:03.800 --> 00:40:06.000
about the moment he stepped off the bus that night.
578
00:40:07.119 --> 00:40:10.719
He said he started to head towards some phone boxes
579
00:40:11.159 --> 00:40:13.639
because there was some light there, and the next thing
580
00:40:13.679 --> 00:40:17.320
he knew he was on fire. As Ekiel asked if
581
00:40:17.320 --> 00:40:20.400
he knew who had set him on far, Michael said
582
00:40:20.400 --> 00:40:23.360
he didn't, but he thought that there were four white men.
583
00:40:24.840 --> 00:40:27.880
Michael's brother Quasi, said he had asked him, why did
584
00:40:27.960 --> 00:40:30.679
they do this to me. There was a man named
585
00:40:30.760 --> 00:40:33.719
Lindon who testified that Perier had told him about the
586
00:40:33.800 --> 00:40:38.639
murder and warned him not to go to police. Initially,
587
00:40:38.679 --> 00:40:42.079
he had remained quiet, telling the court, I suppose I
588
00:40:42.119 --> 00:40:44.280
felt a sense of loyalty to my friends and I
589
00:40:44.360 --> 00:40:48.000
was scared. He said that Pereira told them he was
590
00:40:48.039 --> 00:40:51.119
the one who threw the flammable liquid on Michael whilst
591
00:40:51.159 --> 00:40:55.079
of fat Through the match. Mario Perrera would testify on
592
00:40:55.119 --> 00:40:59.400
his own behalf. He told the court he was probably
593
00:40:59.440 --> 00:41:03.239
in bed that night. He denied saying so what he
594
00:41:03.360 --> 00:41:07.880
was black. He testified, I would never say nothing like that.
595
00:41:09.360 --> 00:41:13.480
Harry Constantinou and Hussein Abdullah refused to take the stand.
596
00:41:14.800 --> 00:41:19.039
The jury were then sent off to deliberate. Ten hours later,
597
00:41:19.079 --> 00:41:24.599
they returned with a verdict. They found Mario Praier a
598
00:41:24.639 --> 00:41:37.280
guilty of murder and Harry Constantino guilty of manslaughter. They
599
00:41:37.280 --> 00:41:40.440
were both found guilty of perversing the course of justice,
600
00:41:40.599 --> 00:41:45.519
along with Hussein Abdullah. As the verdict was announced, the
601
00:41:45.559 --> 00:41:49.599
courtroom erupted into cheers. On the twenty first of December
602
00:41:49.679 --> 00:41:54.199
nineteen ninety nine, the sentences were handed on. Mario Praier
603
00:41:54.360 --> 00:41:57.199
received a life sentence for murder and perverting the course
604
00:41:57.239 --> 00:42:02.239
of justice. Harry Constantino received twelve years from manslaughter and
605
00:42:02.320 --> 00:42:07.039
perverting the course of justice. The judge noted that constantin
606
00:42:07.079 --> 00:42:10.360
who had mental health difficulties of his own, but said
607
00:42:10.400 --> 00:42:14.039
he felt that he had shown genuine remorse. He told
608
00:42:14.119 --> 00:42:16.719
him he was required to serve a minimum of six years.
609
00:42:18.239 --> 00:42:20.840
Husay In Abdullah was sentenced to twenty one months for
610
00:42:20.920 --> 00:42:25.159
perverting the course of justice. Ozgae Savatt was already serving
611
00:42:25.199 --> 00:42:29.599
his fourteen year sentence in Cyprus. Mister Justice Gage spoke
612
00:42:29.639 --> 00:42:34.239
about Michael's family and said, there has been much written
613
00:42:34.400 --> 00:42:38.280
about the determination and tenacity of Michael Manson's family to
614
00:42:38.320 --> 00:42:41.920
see those responsible for his death are brought to justice.
615
00:42:42.079 --> 00:42:44.639
I would like to add my admiration for their efforts.
616
00:42:45.400 --> 00:42:48.199
I've been impressed by the dignified way they have conducted
617
00:42:48.239 --> 00:42:53.000
themselves throughout this trial. Outside the Old Bailey, Michael's family
618
00:42:53.039 --> 00:42:57.760
held a moment's silence. His sister Essi then said, we
619
00:42:57.920 --> 00:43:01.320
felt that by not investigating the murder, the police were
620
00:43:01.360 --> 00:43:04.000
almost sending a message to these people that it's fine
621
00:43:04.679 --> 00:43:06.800
you go and burn a black man in the street
622
00:43:07.199 --> 00:43:10.559
and nothing's going to be done about it. But the
623
00:43:10.639 --> 00:43:14.519
day hadn't been straightforward, even in its moment of resolution.
624
00:43:15.679 --> 00:43:19.320
Something had emerged during the trial proceedings that the family
625
00:43:19.400 --> 00:43:23.199
hadn't been prepared for, something that would take years to
626
00:43:23.199 --> 00:43:26.559
fully reckon with. It was during the trial at the
627
00:43:26.559 --> 00:43:29.960
Old Bailey that Michael's brother first became aware that the
628
00:43:30.039 --> 00:43:34.440
family had been subjected to convert surveillance. It had come
629
00:43:34.519 --> 00:43:38.840
up in the proceedings almost in passing a reference that
630
00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:44.239
landed quietly and then didn't leave. A Special Branch note
631
00:43:44.239 --> 00:43:47.159
on left wing activity in relation to the Stephen Lawrence
632
00:43:47.239 --> 00:43:52.679
Inquiry was later shown to the Undercover Policing Inquiry. It
633
00:43:52.880 --> 00:43:57.320
mentioned Michael Manson's case, alongside a handwritten note stating that
634
00:43:57.440 --> 00:44:00.840
John Grave would be briefed on intelligence from the Special
635
00:44:00.880 --> 00:44:04.719
Demonstration Squad. The report was from late nineteen ninety eight,
636
00:44:05.320 --> 00:44:08.360
the period when Graves team had been investigating the case.
637
00:44:09.239 --> 00:44:12.400
As it turned out, Michael's family had been watched while
638
00:44:12.400 --> 00:44:16.760
they grieved. They had been watched while they organized. They
639
00:44:16.800 --> 00:44:21.079
had campaigned unaware that undercover officers were covertly monitoring the
640
00:44:21.159 --> 00:44:25.719
family and their push for justice for Michael. The questions
641
00:44:25.760 --> 00:44:29.320
this raise didn't have any easy answers, and in nineteen
642
00:44:29.360 --> 00:44:32.280
ninety nine, with the convictions just secured in three years
643
00:44:32.320 --> 00:44:35.599
of campaign finally brought to an end, there was no
644
00:44:35.719 --> 00:44:39.559
mechanism to pursue them. That reckoning would have to wait.
645
00:44:40.480 --> 00:44:44.079
What also had to wait indefinitely, it turned out, was
646
00:44:44.159 --> 00:44:47.639
any form of accountability for the officers whose failures had
647
00:44:47.679 --> 00:44:51.960
made all of it necessary. No officer was ever formally
648
00:44:51.960 --> 00:44:56.199
disciplined for their handling of Michael Manson's murder. All but
649
00:44:56.280 --> 00:44:59.800
one of the senior investigators had either retired or were
650
00:44:59.800 --> 00:45:02.280
in in the process of retiring by the time the
651
00:45:02.280 --> 00:45:06.639
inquest had concluded. The Police Complaints Authority inquiry had been
652
00:45:06.719 --> 00:45:10.679
running since September of nineteen ninety eight. It had found
653
00:45:10.760 --> 00:45:13.760
evidence of overt racism in the handling of the case.
654
00:45:14.920 --> 00:45:18.400
It had recorded an officer referring to Michael as a
655
00:45:18.480 --> 00:45:23.360
fucking black schizophrenic. It had documented the internal reports in
656
00:45:23.400 --> 00:45:26.920
which police had accused the family of bad faith, of
657
00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:31.960
seeking financial gain, of manipulating the media, and at the
658
00:45:32.039 --> 00:45:34.880
end of it all, no one was called to account.
659
00:45:43.679 --> 00:45:46.639
The Guardian's timeline of the case, which was published the
660
00:45:46.719 --> 00:45:50.480
day after the convictions, ran from January nineteen ninety seven
661
00:45:50.920 --> 00:45:55.360
to December nineteen ninety nine, almost three years, condensed into
662
00:45:55.360 --> 00:45:58.920
a column of dates and events. A gentry was a
663
00:45:58.960 --> 00:46:02.440
thing the family had to fight for, the murder inquiry
664
00:46:02.480 --> 00:46:07.239
being opened, the home secretary being contacted, the police apology,
665
00:46:07.679 --> 00:46:11.880
the racial motivation being formally acknowledged. None of this had
666
00:46:11.920 --> 00:46:15.320
happened without pressure. All of it had required the mensance
667
00:46:15.360 --> 00:46:18.199
to push a door that never should have been closed.
668
00:46:19.480 --> 00:46:21.880
The family had also taken their case to the European
669
00:46:21.920 --> 00:46:25.360
Court of Human Rights lodging an application in February of
670
00:46:25.480 --> 00:46:28.440
nineteen ninety nine, in the midst of everything else they
671
00:46:28.480 --> 00:46:31.639
were carrying. In its two thousand and three rulling, the
672
00:46:31.719 --> 00:46:36.159
Court found the application was manifestly ill founded, noting that
673
00:46:36.199 --> 00:46:40.159
although the initial investigation had been gravely deficient, the state
674
00:46:40.239 --> 00:46:44.440
had ultimately fulfilled its obligations under Article two once the
675
00:46:44.480 --> 00:46:49.079
third investigation had been launched and convictions secured. The ruling
676
00:46:49.239 --> 00:46:53.320
acknowledged the failures clearly. It stated that where a racist
677
00:46:53.400 --> 00:46:58.039
attack is involved, it's particularly important that the investigation is
678
00:46:58.119 --> 00:47:02.559
pursued with vigor and impartiality, having regard to the need
679
00:47:02.639 --> 00:47:07.400
to ra assert society's condemnation of racism and to maintain
680
00:47:07.440 --> 00:47:10.760
the confidence of minorities in the ability of the authorities
681
00:47:10.800 --> 00:47:15.159
to protect them from threats of racist violence. It was
682
00:47:15.199 --> 00:47:18.239
a statement of principle arrived far too late to have
683
00:47:18.280 --> 00:47:21.719
protected Michael Manson, but one that would carry weight in
684
00:47:21.760 --> 00:47:26.760
the cases that came after. The family surveillance question remained
685
00:47:26.800 --> 00:47:31.119
open for another quarter of a century. In late twenty
686
00:47:31.320 --> 00:47:35.239
twenty five, the Undercover Policing Inquiry heard evidence from the
687
00:47:35.280 --> 00:47:38.960
Menson family as part of its examination of the campaigns
688
00:47:39.320 --> 00:47:43.280
that had been spied upon, alongside the families of Stephen
689
00:47:43.360 --> 00:47:47.760
Lawrence and Ricky Rail. Michael's sister described coming close to
690
00:47:47.800 --> 00:47:51.239
giving up during the years of the campaign. She became
691
00:47:51.360 --> 00:47:54.800
very emotional giving her account, and the inquiry hearing took
692
00:47:54.840 --> 00:47:58.480
an unscheduled break. Her brother described what it had meant
693
00:47:58.519 --> 00:48:02.000
to learn twenty six years on. At the very moment
694
00:48:02.039 --> 00:48:06.119
the family believed they were finally being taken seriously, the
695
00:48:06.199 --> 00:48:11.000
police had simultaneously been briefing from intelligence gathered by undercover
696
00:48:11.159 --> 00:48:14.840
officers that were watching them. The question put to him
697
00:48:14.880 --> 00:48:18.360
at the inquiry was a plain one. How did it fail?
698
00:48:19.239 --> 00:48:21.960
He was asked, how does it make you feel, at
699
00:48:21.960 --> 00:48:24.960
the point where you thought you were finally being taken seriously,
700
00:48:25.679 --> 00:48:27.639
that it was seemingly the case that they were at
701
00:48:27.639 --> 00:48:31.320
the same time spying, or at the very least had
702
00:48:31.400 --> 00:48:36.119
knowledge of spying by undercover officers on your family. He replied,
703
00:48:36.920 --> 00:48:40.480
that sense of disbelief to sweep in and say, you know,
704
00:48:40.960 --> 00:48:43.719
we know it was murder, we know it was who
705
00:48:43.760 --> 00:48:48.239
it was, but to conceal this was an accidental omission,
706
00:48:48.880 --> 00:48:52.400
This was you know, I've used the word manipulation so
707
00:48:52.440 --> 00:48:55.719
many times but I can't understand how this is anything
708
00:48:55.760 --> 00:48:59.880
other than intentional. What if the trial hadn't led to convictions.
709
00:49:00.480 --> 00:49:02.280
What if this stuff had got in the way of
710
00:49:02.320 --> 00:49:07.320
finding justice? They risked so much. I can't understand how
711
00:49:07.360 --> 00:49:09.480
people of their seniority think.
712
00:49:09.320 --> 00:49:10.119
That that's okay.
713
00:49:11.360 --> 00:49:15.039
Michael Manson had been a musician, a son, a brother,
714
00:49:15.679 --> 00:49:18.239
a man who had once stood on a BBC stage
715
00:49:18.280 --> 00:49:21.159
and filled a room with sound, and who had spent
716
00:49:21.280 --> 00:49:25.039
his last years fighting an illness that hadn't beaten him.
717
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He had been set on fire on a call January
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night by men who thought nothing would come of it.
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In the end, they had been wrong, but it had
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taken everything the people who loved Michael had left to
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prove it. Well. That is it for today's episode of Morbidology.
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As always, thank you so much for listening, and I'd
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like to say a massive thank you to my new
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supporter up on Patreon, Elizabeth. Over on Patreon, I upload
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ad free, early release and bonus episodes of Morbidology. I
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also send the Patreon exclusive merch along with a thank
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you card, and you can also get bonus episodes, AD
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00:50:23.079 --> 00:50:27.880
free and early release episodes over on Apple subscriptions remember
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to check us out at morbidology dot com for more
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information about this episode and to read some true crime articles.
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Until next time, take care of yourselves, stay safe, and
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have an amazing week.