ISCI is a cross-disciplinary research centre working to further our understanding of state crime: organisational deviance violating human rights

INJUSTICE: The struggles for justice by the families of people that have died in police custody

The film, ‘Injustice’, directed by Ken Fero & Tariq Mehmood (Migrant Media) and produced in 2001, can be viewed in its entirety here.

In 1969 David Oluwale became the first black person to die in police custody in Britain. Many others have died since then. None of the police officers involved have been convicted of these deaths. In this documentary, the families of these victims ask “Why not?”

This is a blow by blow account of the relentless struggles of the families as they find out how they lost their loved ones in extremely violent deaths at the hands of police officers.

Each family is met with a wall of official secrecy and the film documents how they unite and challenge this together. The documentary uses powerful exclusive footage filmed over a five year period and witnesses the families pain and anger at the killings. It documents the fight to retrieve the bodies for burial, the mockery of police self-investigation and the collusion of the legal system in the deaths. The film asks why an accused killer in a police uniform is not judged by the same standards as the rest of society.

Injustice documents the horrific loss of life at the hands of the state and it’s attempts to cover up these killings. The British police have been responsible for hundreds of deaths and have walked free.The families of the dead want justice and they will not stop until they have got it.

Winner Best Documentary – BFM London Film Festival 2002, Winner National Social Justice Award 2003, Winner Best Documentary (Human Rights) – One World Film Festival 2003, Winner New Nation Campaign group of the Year 2004.

Update 2012: injusticefilm.co.uk contains features about the making of the film the attempts by the police to ban it and its subsequent impact. Recent articles are here:
guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/05/lawrence-case-another-injustice
tmponline.org/2012/03/07/filming-injustice-an-interview-with-documentary-maker-ken-fero/