HUMAN rights lawyer Aamer Anwar has given a scathing verdict of both the Scottish prison and police services calling them “farcical”.
Referring to the Sheku Bayoh case, he questioned where “the gazebo is when a black man dies in police custody?”
Anwar questioned the resources given to the high-profile search of Peter Murrell and Nicola Sturgeon's home as part of Operation Branchform, the ongoing investigation into the SNP's finances.
Anwar spoke out as he appeared in the series produced by the Stand at the Edinburgh Fringe “In Conversation” on Sunday afternoon.
The lawyer spoke at length about the public inquiry into the death of Bayoh – the 31-year-old Kirkcaldy man who died while in police custody in May 2015.
Anwar, who represents Bayoh’s family, suggested the Scottish Police Federation “acts worse” than those in England and Wales as officers believe they are immune to action against them.
The public inquiry was announced in 2019 after it was confirmed there would be no criminal charges in Bayoh's case.
Anwar said the family has been “betrayed by each part of the system” in the eight years since Bayoh’s death.
He described the initial response from officers in Kirkcaldy as an “amateur hour operation”, as well as in the aftermath of Bayoh’s death.
Anwar told how officers were allowed to sit together for eight hours following the incident and only gave statements a month later.
He said this meant Police Scotland missed the “golden window of opportunity” to gather evidence that was reliable, both physical and witness statements.
He called the gathering of evidence on the scene, as well as the lack of monitoring of officers following the incident, as "farcical".
In reference to the high-profile search of former first minister Sturgeon's home during the SNP finance probe, Anwar said: "We've all seen gazebo's recently - where is the gazebo when a black man dies in police custody?"
The lawyer also labelled the race training officers receive in Scotland as “pathetic”, calling for the crown office immunity to be reviewed if Scots are to trust they live in a “civil democracy”.
Anwar has worked on some major cases during his career including the Ice Cream Wars appeal, the perjury trial of Tommy Sheridan, and the Lockerbie bombing appeal.
His firm, which is to star in a dedicated eight-episode series on the BBC this autumn, also represents the families of Katie Allan and William Lindsay, who died by suicide in prison; and the mother of Emma Caldwell, who was strangled in woodland in 2005 aged 27.
