By Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner Writer
Sir John Stevens, head of New Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, London. - File
WITH CONFIRMATION that personnel from the famous New Scotland Yard in London are in Jamaica to support the Operation Kingfish task force, one senior police officer with the task force is seeking to assure the Jamaican public that there's no need for concern about the attitudes that the Britons will be taking to their assignment in Jamaica.
This comes against the background of serious allegations of racial discrimination by New Scotland Yard personnel in carrying out their policing duties in the United Kingdom in the last decade.
It was the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence, a teenager of Jamaican parentage, that brought to the fore, concern regarding the attitudes of the Metropolitan Police Service (widely known as New Scotland Yard police, from the name of their headquarters).
Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death by a group of white thugs while waiting at a bus stop. Scotland Yard was severely criticised for its slow and insensitive response to the murder. A judicial inquiry headed by former High Court Judge, Sir William MacPherson, in its 1999 report, accused the 175-year-old Metro-politan Police Service of 'institutional racism'.
IRREGULARITIES
The report catalogued a series of irregularities in how the aftermath of the stabbing was handled: failure to administer proper first aid at the scene of the attack; failure to properly search for evidence and suspects; failure to properly log and investigate tip-offs about the identity of the killers; and failure to treat the family of the slain youth with respect and sensitivity.
With Stephen Lawrence's parents being Jamaican, the case attracted widespread media coverage here, sharpening perceptions of racial bias in and outside of the police services in the UK. But according to Detective Superinten-dent Denver Frater there's no danger of such problems being transferred to Jamaica.
"They (Scotland Yard police) are not here to do our work; they are here to share their expertise with us.
"They have had a successful journey with respect to Operation Trident (a task force established in the '90s targeting black on black violence in London), which is some way connected to us here in Jamaica. We have examined that operation and have looked at best practices, and, in consultation, Government to Government, they are assisting us to deal with our organised major criminal networks. To date they have been very supportive, and the experience that we have had just through our interaction has been tremendous," he asserted.
The success of Operation Trident, he pointed out, was due, in large measure, to the trust established between New Scotland Yard personnel and the targeted communities which, he argued, belied the earlier charges of hostility between the two sides.
"These guys have been extremely successful in bringing the crime situation in those communities under control, and of course this could not have been achieved without the support of those communities. So I'm pretty confident that we will not have a problem," DSP Frater said.
REGULATIONS
Should any such problem arise, however, he said that there were regulations in place, under Jamaican law, to quickly deal with the matter.
Coming out of the Mac-Pherson Report, the police and several other public service bodies in the UK were brought under the jurisdiction of the Race Relations Act of 1976, by way of the amendments to the principal Act in 2000.
Another recommendation, that relating to double jeopardy, has now been implemented as well. This amendment, enacted in 2003, provides that, in some circumstances, a person can now be tried twice for the same crime. This far-reaching change arose from the fact that, with the initial attempt at prosecuting some of the suspects in the Stephen Lawrence case having failed because of insufficient evidence at the time, they thereby escaped the threat of trial at a later date, even if more compelling evidence were to be unearthed.
