Campaigning for institutional transparency, accountability and justice over four decades
The idea of the Monitoring Group was inspired by the American Black Panther Party for Self-Defence, which sought to challenge racist policing practices in US cities by patrolling the streets and monitoring the behaviour of police officers.
The Monitoring Group was born from the lived the experience of African Caribbean and Asian young people growing up in Britain during the 1970s. They faced racial violence, abuse and daily racist encounters with the police. Listed below and in chronological order are a number of cases where The Monitoring Group has played a significant role in the struggle for justice.
A timeline of cases and campaigns
1976
Gurdip Singh Chaggar, 18 (pictured, left) was stabbed to death by a gang of white youths in a racist attack in Southall, west London that rocked the South Asian community. After Chaggar’s death, Suresh Grover (now National Coordinator at The Monitoring Group) became one of the founding members of the Southall Asian Youth Movement. Similar groups sprung up across the UK.
Their slogan was: “Come what may, we are here to stay”.
Suresh said: "We were British Asians with Black politics and we wanted to unite people to combat the issue of racism.”
Learn more in the Pool of blood that changed my life BBC article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33725217
1979
The murder of Blair Peach
Blair Peach, a schoolteacher, was killed during anti-racist demonstration in Southall. Police actions on the day also led to over 700 arrests and 345 people subjected to various criminal charges. Suresh Grover was one of the key activists who established legal defence for those charged, documented the social impact of the event and galvanised local, national and international support, for over a decade, to name those responsible for the killing of Blair Peach. In 1999/2000 The Monitoring Group organised a meeting with the Home Office minister so that a Public Inquiry could be established to examine the circumstances leading to Mr Peach’s Killing. Although this demand was refused, in 2010, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner released Commander Cass’s internal report that strongly suggested that an officer from the Special Patrol Group was responsible for Blair Peach’s murder. Publicity about the case can be read here: https://bitly.ws/3h8Dk
1981
In July 1981, the UK experienced violent public disorders in at least 30 cities, including two – 3rd and 10 July – in Southall. The Southall Monitoring Group was instrumental in establishing a national committee to look at the causes of these disturbances. The pressure led to the establishment of Lord Scarman’s Inquiry into Brixton events. The Scarman Report can be read here: https://archives.libraries.london.ac.uk/resources/MS897.pdf
Bradford 12 Campaign
Southall Monitoring Group’s director Suresh Grover was coordinator of the Bradford 12 campaign, an organisation established to defend twelve young men facing conspiracy charges. The campaign led to the acquittal of these men and defined (Regina v Gata-Aura) the legal notion of self-defence. Read an article in the Trbune journal about the case here: https://tribunemag.co.uk/2022/10/self-defence-is-no-offence-remembering-the-bradford-12
1984/5
Bhopal Victims Support Committee
Southall Monitoring Group (SMG) established the Bhopal Victim’s Support Group that organised regular events across the UK for over a decade. The campaign was in response to the Bhopal Gas tragedy that is considered to be the world’s worst industrial disaster. The event occurred on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and other chemicals. The toxic substance made its way into and around the shantytowns located near the plant. Estimates vary on the death toll. The official immediate death toll was 2,259. The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. A government affidavit in 2006 stated that the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries. Others estimate that 8,000 died within two weeks, and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases.
1988/9
Kuldip Sekhon Family Support Group
Mr Sekhon, a local Southall taxi driver, was murdered by Steen Cocker, a well-known local supporter of the National Front in December 1988 in Hounslow, Middlesex. Southall Monitoring Group established a family justice campaign to ensure a thorough police investigation and organised local family led protests to highlight the case, including a successful half day closure of Southall town centre to mark Mr Sekhon’s funeral in January 1989. Read an article about the case here: https://paulcolemanslondon.blogspot.com/2023/04/thatcher-legacy-death-murders-southall.html
1993
Drummond Street Defence campaign
Southall Monitoring Group provided critical support to the Drummond Street Defence Campaign. The campaign was formed to defend two Bengali youths who had been unjustly charged with causing grievous bodily harm at a football tournament in Ealing on October 4, 1992. The campaign was concerned that those charges were politically motivated. The two youths were members of the Drummond Street Youth Associations and their arrests were followed by dawn raids on the homes of several Bengali families in the Drummond street area. They were acquitted on May 15, 1993.
In 1993 Stephen Lawrence, an 18-year-old Black man, was stabbed to death at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London by a group of White youths in an unprovoked, racist attack. Stephen’s friend, Duwayne Brooks, was with him at the time and witnessed the attack. Almost twenty years later, two of the group responsible for Stephen’s murder were convicted.
Southall Monitoring Group were involved in supporting the Lawrence Family Campaign in Autumn 1993 and played a critical role in developing the campaign from 1994 onwards, in particular during the private prosecution and public Inquiry periods. The group also provided office space, secretarial support and full time personnel to support the family campaign during the intervening years. It organised local and national meetings and events in support of the family’s quest for justice. For about a year, in 1997, Stephen’s mother Doreen Lawrence became a member of The Monitoring Group’s staff, recruited to support victims of domestic violence. Read about the Macpherson Public Inquiry in to the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the police investigation: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/22/macpherson-report-what-was-it-and-what-impact-did-it-have
1994
Camden Monitoring Project
Southall Monitoring Group provided support to establish the Camden Monitoring Project, launched following an increase in racism after the murder of Richard Everrit on August 13, 1994.
1997
Support for Hillingdon strikers 1997-1999
Southall Monitoring Group provided daily support for Hillingdon Hospital Strikers: Twenty one strikers at Hillingdon hospital eventually won their three year fight after an industrial tribunal ruled that they should get their jobs back and receive compensation. The dispute began in 1995 when Pall Mall, which had won a contract to provide domestic services to the hospital, imposed a 20% pay cut; reduced holiday and sick pay, followed by checks on the immigration status of Asian workers. The strikers, all Asian women, never gave up despite losing strike pay from their union, Unison, which urged them to settle the dispute.
Justice for Ricky Reel
Southall Monitoring Group played a central role in supporting the Reel family for over 18 years. Ricky Reel was found dead, in October 1997, in the river Thames, Kingston after a racist attack on him and a group of friends. Police maintained that Ricky died while trying to urinate in the river and refused to acknowledge any racial motivation in the original attack. Apart from liaising with three separate police investigation teams, some of the key events in the campaign included:
Creating search parties to find Ricky Reel in the first week when he was deemed missing; organising regular protests in Kingston, organising annual memorial lectures, supporting an Information appeal on the BBC Crimewatch programme, developing hard copy and online petition campaigns, supporting the family through the Inquest process and organising parliamentary initiatives. Read about recent developments in the case: https://news.sky.com/story/ricky-reel-hope-for-family-as-police-re-investigate-his-death-after-25-years-12811957
1998
Establishment of BRAIN
This important initiative brought together anti - racist monitoring groups from across the country to develop best practice on race hate crimes and campaigns and organise a national conference out of which the Black Racial Attacks Independent Network (BRAIN) was established. The conference was titled “The betrayal of Stephen Lawrence”, and was attended by 400 delegates from across the country. Speakers included Doreen and Neville Lawrence, Sukhdev Reel, Suresh Grover and Myrna Simpson.
Michael Menson Family Campaign
Southall Monitoring Group played a central role in supporting this campaign. Michael Menson died in February 1998, after being set alight in a racist attack in Edmonton, north London. Despite police insistence that this was an act of suicide, an Inquest jury found that Michael had been unlawfully killed. Southall Monitoring Group helped galvanise support for a new investigation by organising a meeting with the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw and the newly established Scotland Yard’s Racial and Violent Taskforce headed by Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Grieve. The reinvestigation led to conviction of three men in the UK and a trial of a fourth man in Cyprus. Suresh Grover accompanied the family during the Cyprus trial in 1999. In 2000, Detective Chief Inspector Robin Scott, the original investigation officer and ten other officers were removed from operational duties.
1999
National Civil Rights Movement (NCRM)
The NCRM was launched on March 28, 1999 in London and was attended by over 800 people, including more than 40 family justice campaigns and was supported by eminent human rights lawyers. By mid 1999, NCRM branches were established in Sheffield, Leicester, Manchester, Exeter and Plymouth and Cardiff. It organised numerous public meeting and protests. Including a national demonstration in London 2001.
Liban Ali Family Campaign
Liban Ali and two friends were attacked and racially abused by a gang of white men and women in Leicester city centre in August 1999. Liban had his head “kicked like a football”. All those involved were arrested but only one, James Watson, was charged with attempted murder. One week before his trial the Crown Prosecution Service agreed a deal with Watson and he pleased guilty to Grievous Bodily Harm and was sentenced to four years in prison. The judge commended Watson on the remorse shown throughout the proceedings.
London nail bombings
Over three successive weekends from April 17 to April 30th, 1999 David Copeland placed homemade nail bombs, each containing up to 1500 four-inch nails, in holdalls that he left in public spaces around London. The first bomb was placed outside the Iceland supermarket in Electric Avenue, Brixton, an area of south London with a large African Caribbean population. The second was in Brick Lane in the East End of London that has a large Bangladeshi community. The third was inside the Admiral Duncan pub, in Soho’s Old Compton Street, the heart of London’s gay community. The bombs killed three people, including a pregnant woman, and injured 140, four of whom lost limbs. David Copeland was arrested in May 2000. Copeland had a list of other targets including Peckham, Southall and Tottenham. The Monitoring Group organised street safety patrols in Southall in April 2000 and meetings throughout London. The group received a letter threatening to nail bomb Southall that was handed to police.
2000
Tewodros Afework Family Support Group
Mr Afework, a 24- year- old Eritrean was left in a coma after being beaten unconscious in a racist attack in Kentish Town, north London on April 23, 2000. The attacker - a six foot white man shouted racist abuse before punching and kicking Mr Afework to the ground. The Monitoring Group organised information leafleting throughout Camden for over three months.
Farhan Mire Support Group
The Monitoring Group created support for Mr Mire’s family.
Farhan Mire, a Somali refugee was kicked to death by white men in Harrow, London in December 1999. Ryan Kelly was arrested and charged with the murder on February 18, 1999. However when the case came to trial in April 1999 Kelly was discharged after the Crown Prosecution Service claimed there was not enough evidence to prove the racial motivation of the murder. The family was told that there was no forensic evidence and that a witness and suspect had disappeared.
New Diamond 5 campaign
The Monitoring Group created the New Diamond 5 Campaign.
Five Chinese waiters from the New Diamond restaurant in Chinatown, London, were arrested after defending themselves from a racist attack by eight white men. The perpetrators of the attacks were not initially arrested but were later charged after the campaign.
Okofa Hodasi
The Monitoring Group supported the family of Mr Hodasi.
Akofa Hodasi, 24- years- old and a Ghanian student was found hanging from a tree on April 29, 1998 in Frimley, Surrey. An inquest into his death in September 1999 heard that three days before he died, Akofa and his friend Natham Evans were racially attacked, and that Natham needed 17 stitches. The attackers also told them “we know where you live, and next time we will shoot you”. Akofa was badly shaken by the attack and two days after reporting the incident to the police he was dead. The police told the inquest there was a possibility that Akofa was strung up and the inquest recorded an open verdict.
Zahid Mubarek Family Campaign
Zahid Mubarek, 19, was killed at Feltham Youth Offending Institute, by Robert Stewart, 20, in the early hours of March 21, 2000, five hours before he was due to be released after serving 40 days for handling stolen goods. Stewart had been in custody almost constantly for three years and had a history of mental health problems, violence against fellow prisoners and disruption. He was on remand on a charge of sending racially motivated malicious communications, an offence under the Harassment Act. He wrote hundreds of racist letters in which he revered the killers of Stephen Lawrence, fantasised about planting nail bombs and predicted the murder of his cellmate. He had scrawled “KKK” on a board in his cell. But he was allocated the same cell as Zahid Mubarek. The Monitoring Group supported the family throughout and resourced the family campaign for over a decade. This included meeting with the Minster for Home Affairs, Paul Boateng, to press for a public inquiry, attending the trial of Robert Stewart in October/November 2000, supporting the family during the legal proceeding to establish the Public Inquiry and during the Inquiry itself.
Sarfraz Najieb Support Group
The Monitoring Group was instrumental in supporting the Najeib family for over two years. In January 2000 Sarfraz Najieb stopped to watch a fight outside a Leeds nightclub. A white gang that included a number of prominent footballers, assaulted him and chased Safraz and his friends. He suffered a broken leg, ribs and nose. Police made five arrests. The case led to two trials and resulted in the conviction of the footballer, Jonathan Woodgate.
Dover 58 Campaign
For over a year, The Monitoring Group organised support and campaigning activities for many relatives whose loved ones had died from suffocation in a container in Dover, Calais.
Jason and Errol McGowan Family Campaign
Harold (aka Errol) McGowan was found hanged in suspicious circumstances after suffering a two-year campaign of racist abuse in Telford, Shropshire. Jason McGowan disappeared minutes before midnight on New Years Eve while out with his wife in Telford. His body was found hanged on roadside railings a few hours later. He had been investigating his uncle’s death.
The Monitoring Group organised a campaign support group for the family that included a meeting with the Home Secretary forcing a new police investigation headed by Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Grieve and organising legal representation during the Inquest procedures.
Glyn Agard Support Group
The Monitoring Group organised a family justice campaign for Glyn Agard.
Four soldiers were charged for the murder of Glyn Agard and assaulting Stephen Agard and Gary Belgraves. They were on a night out in Wiltshire in June 2000 when they were beaten in a car park. Glyne died of head injuries. On May 18, 2001 Mark Hunter and David White were found not guilty of the murder, after the prosecutions offered no evidence against the men.
Edgar Fernandes Family Campaign
The Monitoring Group supported the family of Edgar Campaign.
Edgar Fernandes was a librarian living in Hackney, east London. He left for a week’s holiday in Turkey April 8, 1998. When he failed to return, his family alerted the local police in Kentish Town. The police officer suspected that he had run away from the family and tried to probe into the family’s history.
Two members of the family flew to Turkey while others remained in London to exert pressure there. Although the Turkish authorities were unhelpful, within days the family had located Edgar’s belongings and medication in the hotel room and had a description of the person who was last seen with Edgar. This was immediately reported to Kentish Town police station, who still maintained that Edgar must have run away from home. Meanwhile the traumatic search for Edgar continued. They On May 8, 1998 two members of the family were looking at pictures of dead bodies in the morgue. Depressingly one of the photographs was of Edgar’s body.
The family continued with their investigation and located the chief suspect in Malta. In an impressive and unprecedented feat they managed to galvanise the Maltese authorities to arrest the man. He initially confessed to the murder of Edgar Fernandes, though later changed his story. After the family approached The Monitoring Group, the Metropolitan Police began to work more seriously on the case. The trial of the man suspected of killing Edgar began in Turkey in February 2000 and he was convicted.
Elizabeth Chau Support Group
Elizabeth Chau, a student at Thames Valley University, was 19 when she disappeared from Ealing in April 1999. She was last seen outside Ealing Police Station in Uxbridge Road. Together with the family, The Monitoring Group exerted pressure on local police to investigate her disappearance seriously, and organised community based search parties for over four months. Elizabeth remains missing. In 2010, local police finally admitted that she is probably a victim of a serial murderer. Read this article on developments with the case: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/11/levi-bellfield-confesses-elizabeth-chau-1999
Garry Walton Support Group
Garry Walton, a 21-year-old Irish man, was racially murdered in November 1996 while he was on a pleasure boat in Tenerife. Evidence shows men from Essex continuously taunted him. It is alleged that these same people murdered him by throwing him overboard. In July 1997, Greater Manchester Police obtained statements from witnesses claiming they heard the men boast of their killing. Although The Monitoring Group provided support for the family, and exerted pressure on police to take the investigation seriously, the case remains unsolved.
Abdi Dorre Support Group
Somalian Abdi Dorre died in August 1999 after sustaining fatal head injuries falling down a flight of stairs in a Northampton nightclub. His family sought The Monitoring Group/National Civil Rights Movement support to pressurise the police to carry out a thorough investigation and find those responsible. The Monitoring Group organised several meetings with senior police officers to persuade them to review their investigation but they refused to budge, and as a consequence, the family organised peaceful vigils to seek public support for the case. At the inquest in May 2001, the corner returned an open verdict. It was revealed at the inquest that the police had never carried out any forensic tests at the scene and that there was an unexplained fourteen-minute gap in the CCTV coverage of the events. A number of CCTV cameras recorded his argument with the doorman at the club, but none recorded the moment he is said to have fallen down the stairs.
Dawood Family Justice Campaign
In February 2002 Sakil and Saeed Dawood went to India with their childhood friend Mohammed Aswat and their 18-year-old nephew, Imran. Whilst returning from an excursion trip, a roadblock, manned by a well-organised mob fuelled by religious hatred, stopped the British tourists. The mob circled the jeep and demanded to know from the occupants their religious identity, the tourists answered that they were British citizens and were indeed Muslims. The hired driver was then dragged out of the jeep and attacked with sticks and killed on the spot. His body was then thrown back into the vehicle and set alight. In the meantime, the British tourists were chased to a nearby farm.
Mohammed Aswat and Imran Dawood were stabbed and left for dead. Imran miraculously survived and he recalls Saeed and Sakil pleading with the mob to spare all their lives. The Dawood family has not only endured this terrible tragedy. The grief is compounded by the lack of any serious or thorough Indian police investigation. The family has had to visit the crime scene themselves, find vital clues and collate forensic evidence including the charred remains of bodies.
The killing of British Citizens took place in the midst of anti-Muslim carnage that resulted in over 3000 deaths and displacement of over 100, 000 people and raping of over 100 women.
The Monitoring Group has worked with the family since 2002. The campaign has been successful in forcing the local police to investigate the murder and charge those responsible, and established a legal team in India that has filed a civil action suite against senior politicians and police officers for crimes against humanity. The campaign has organised meetings, protests and parliamentary debate.
Spencer Weston Support Group
Spencer Weston received fatal multiple injuries when he was hit by a car at 2.30am on a Saturday night in August 1999, after running away from a large fight in the city centre. During the fight, bricks and bottles were thrown between white and Black youths and both sides received serious injuries. Spencer suffered a head injury after being kicked to the ground outside a taxi office and subjected to racial abuse. He was then chased, along with other Black men, by police officers that were attempting to make an arrest. Two police investigations in 1999 and 2001 failed to discover who assaulted Spencer Weston but the Police complaint concluded that police failure was due to institutional racism.
2005
Chohan Family Support Group
Amarjit Chohan, his wife, Nancy, two children and mother- in- law were all kidnapped and murdered. Nancy’s brother, Onkar Verma, who flew to the UK from New Zealand, worried that he had lost contact with the entire family, initially contacted TMG.
At first, local police showed no interest in the disappearance wrongly believing that Mr. Chohan had fled for tax evasion reason.
The campaign, via press and legal support, forced a new police investigation, headed by one of the most able and senior detectives based at New Scotland Yard. The exhaustive investigation led to the conviction of three individuals for five murders. Read about the case here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jul/02/ukcrime.rosiecowan1
Victoria Climbe
After suffering months of horrific abuse, Victoria Climbié died aged just eight on February 25, 2000. Nearly 18 months earlier her parents had sent her from her home in a shantytown in the Ivory Coast to live with her great-aunt in the hope she would get a good education and enjoy a better life. Instead she was beaten with bicycle chains and kept trussed up in a plastic sack in an unlit, unheated bathroom. TMG worked with her parents, Berthe Amoissi and Francis Climbié to help establish the public Inquiry.
Mi Gao Huang Chen
TMG worked with the widow of Mr Chen and together forced police to investigate the murder seriously. Mi Gao Huang Chen was a British Chinese man who was attacked on 23 April 2005 by a large group of youths outside the Chinese takeaway he ran in Scholes, Wigan, Greater Manchester. He died of his injuries on 28 April at the age of 41. The police arrested 23 people in connection with the attack, four of whom were eventually convicted of murder. Read about the case here; https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/nov/10/ukcrime.helencarter#:~:text=The%20boys%2C%20aged%2015%20and,attack%20in%20April%20this%20year.
2006
Lee Phipps
Yusef Porter, and her son, Lee Phipps, experienced many years of racist incidents and had installed video cameras throughout their home, which captured many of the incidents. In March 2006, Lee went for a walk to take photographs near his house, and on his way back home he was killed in a knife attack. Scott Nicholls, one of the individuals who had previously harassed the family, murdered him. Scott Nicholls pleaded guilty to the murder of Lee in January 2007. TMG was instrumental in providing support for the family during the investigation period.
2007
Xiong Zhang
Mr. Xiong Zhang, 33, who lived in Hackney, was found injured on a towpath in east London. He was taken to hospital but died a week later in August 2007. Police said Mr. Zhang had been in the area selling DVDs that were stolen from him prior to him being found.
TMG organized numerous meeting with senior police investigators and were successful in persuading them to conduct a thorough investigation. Despite this, it did not result in an arrest or conviction.
2013
Chinatown raids
In October 2013 TMG in collaboration with the Chinese community organized a shut down of Chinatown. London’s Chinatown, an international hub of Chinese restaurants and businesses, has witnessed systematic immigration raids. Over 13 businesses have reported heavy-handed raids of their premises. All the existing evidence suggests that the raids were not intelligence led. Some of the raids did not even lead to a single arrest of any individual. Business owners also believe that the raids did not comply with lawful procedures and have only added fuel to negative stereotyping and ‘racial profiling’ of the Chinese community.
2014
Nicky Jacobs is Innocent Campaign
Nicky Jacobs was arrested and charged with the murder of Police Constable Keith Henry Blakelock who was killed during the “uprising” on Broadwater Farm in October 1985. He is the seventh person to be charged. He was acquitted.
The “uprising” took place because of the killing of Cynthia Jarrett, a local Black woman and mother of 5 children, during a police raid on her home on October 5th 1985. The 6 people originally charged were known as the Tottenham SIX, 3 juveniles and 3 adults were put on trial for Blakelock’s murder at the Old Bailey in March 1987. During the trial the judge, Lord Chief Justice Hodgson, dismissed the charges against the three juveniles.
The Monitoring Group, together with Tottenham Rights organized protests and meetings to raise public alarm in the manner in which this case was being prosecuted.
Wayne Collins Family Campaign
On 6 June 2012, a young man, of dual heritage, was sent to prison for 18 years for a crime he did not commit. In August 2011 Wayne Collins-Taylor spent a couple of days visiting a friend in Birmingham whom he had met on holiday. On the evening that he was due to return home to Luton, he found himself among a group of people, only one of whom he knew. Some of them started smashing and then burning a pub in the vicinity and took part in a violent public disorder. The police arrived within minutes, and the group ran away from the scene. Wayne’s presence at the crime scene and association with the person he met on holiday was enough to get him convicted under a controversial law known as Joint Enterprise. Indeed during the trial it was agreed that there was no forensic evidence that linked Wayne to any firearm and CCTV footage showed him to be only standing around and running.
Together with the family, The Monitoring Group organised meetings and vigils in Luton to expose the unjust conviction and the dangerous usage of Join Enterpris.
* The Monitoring Group continues to support families and individuals where historical cases remain unresolved and there has been no justice for loved ones. We will update this chronology of campaigns with current cases soon.