Blair Peach

Clement Blair Peach was born in New Zealand in 1946, and in 1969 he moved to London where he became a teacher at a special needs school in Bow. He was a member of the Socialist Workers' Party, and President of the East London Teachers' Association (a branch of the NUT).

On St. George's Day 1979 (a Monday), Peach attended a demonstration outside Southall Town Hall, organised by the Anti–Nazi League to protest against a meeting of the National Front which was taking place inside. A general election was due to take place ten days later (as a result of which Margaret Thatcher would succeed James Callaghan as Prime Minister). Over 2,500 police officers were present at the demonstration, which became violent; more than 40 people, including 21 police officers, were injured, and 300 were arrested. Peach was knocked unconscious in a side street, and died the next day in Ealing Hospital.

Days later, 10,000 people marched past the place where Peach had collapsed. A similar number attended his funeral on 14 June. Public reaction to Peach's death was a major factor in the build–up to the 1981 Brixton riot, which was the subject of a public inquiry led by Lord Scarman.

The Metropolitan Police held an internal inquiry into Peach's death, led by Commander John Cass. Its findings were not published until 2010, when it was revealed that Cass had identified six officers of the Special Patrol Group (SPG), one of whom he believed to have killed Peach. It seemed that these officers had refused to cooperate with the inquiry and lied to investigators, making it impossible to identify the actual killer.

A pathologist's report, submitted to the Cass inquiry, indicated that Peach's broken skull was not the result of being struck by a truncheon, but may have been caused by a lead–weighted rubber cosh or a hosepipe filled with lead shot. A search of the SPG's headquarters unearthed numerous unauthorised weapons.

At the inquest into Peach's death, the coroner (Dr. John Burton) refused to let any of the details from the Cass Report be submitted as evidence. He criticised media organisations, including the BBC, for promoting "biased propaganda". Fearing that the inquest might be hijacked by the "extreme left", he resisted calls for it to have a jury until he was forced by the court of appeal to comply.

Eleven witnesses informed the inquest that they had seen Peach being attacked by police. Burton dismissed this evidence as "fabrication", stating that the witnesses were "totally politically committed to the Socialist Workers Party".

On 27 May 1980, the inquest jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure. Peach's girlfriend, Celia Stubbs, continued to campaign for many years for a public inquiry into his death. The Metropolitan Police Service reached an out–of–court settlement with Peach's brother in 1989.