Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Joy Gardner: killed in police custody
Using an FOI request, SOLOMON HUGHES reveals the disgusting methods of the Met deportation squad, who routinely gagged victims by wrapping their heads with medical tape
Joy Gardner was killed in 1993 after Metropolitan Police officers wrapped her head in 13 feet of medical tape
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
NINE DAYS after the arrest of Joy Gardner, a Jamaican woman who died after being bound and gagged by a police “deportation” squad in north London in 1993, the Metropolitan Police had a detailed report giving full details of what they called the “uncivilised” and “defacto dangerous” police techniques.
It revealed gagging was against the police’s own legal advice, but was still routinely used. The Metropolitan Police delayed giving ministers the report for eight days, despite government demands. Both police and government failed to make the details in the report public, leaving journalists to piece together the grim details of Gardner’s death.
Gardner came from Jamaica in 1987 and was trying to get settled status in Britain: Gardner’s mother was already a UK citizen. Gardner’s son was born in Britain. Gardner was enrolled as a student at London Guildhall University and still in correspondence with the Home Office when the three-person squad from the Metropolitan Police’s Aliens Deportation Group raided her house on July 28, without warning, to deport her to Jamaica.
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