none of the West Midlands police officers acquitted of criminal offences following the

death of Michael Powell, 38, in police custody on 7th September 2003 are to face disciplinary charges.”

On the 2nd August 2006 after the 10 West Midlands police

officers were cleared of all blame for Mikey’s death, his

family said in a statement; “This is yet another instance

where a fit young man has come into contact with the

police, been restrained, taken into custody and within a

matter of hours is pronounced dead.” The family stands

by that statement ever stronger following the

IPCC’s decision.

Through the family’s solicitor, they are now considering what

other legal channels to pursue in challenge of this decision,

amongst which may be the seeking of a judicial review.

The IPCC decision, like so many of its decisions demonstrates their refusal to proceed with any disciplinary action at all when people die in police custody.

This is what happened. Officers drove a police car at Mikey, hitting him, beat him with batons, CS gassed him, restrained him and, knowing he was injured, and drove him to a police station not a hospital. At the police station the officers simply did not call for an ambulance for over 4 minutes. Mikey was dead by the time it arrived. On any body’s version something went very seriously wrong.

The police disciplinary procedure exists to deal with incompetence as well as deliberate wrong doing. The prospect that these police officers and this police

force escape any scrutiny or accountability in the disciplinary process is an ominous prospect for policing in Birmingham.

The IPCC promised to transform how complaints are dealt with in the police force, and to “speed up the existing system”; yet it has taken the Powell family three

and a half years to get this decision which is ominously as predictable now as under the old Police Complaints Authority (PCA) which the IPCC replaced. At the time of the

IPCC’s launch, Nick Hardwick was its Chief Executive and stated publicly that their “key objective is to increase confidence in the system and police as a whole."

The family of Mikey Powell believes that there is a continuing systemic failure and complacency within a system that has not seen a single successful prosecution

of serving police officers since the death of David Oluwale in 1969.

In October 2004 after the release of a Home Office report entitled “Statistics on Death During or Following Police Contact 2003/04, Home Office Minister, Hazel Blears commented that, “There was an encouraging reduction in the number of deaths of people from minority ethnic communities from 22 in 2002/03 to 10 in 2003/04.”

The Powell family’s response to Hazel Blears was; “whether 22 or 10 deaths, this is still unacceptable. We must remember that for each of those 10 deaths there are 10 families that have lost loved ones in extremely traumatic circumstances, and who are up against the might and experience of top police legal representation, and Home Office and Crown Prosecution Service decisions, which have come out in favour of the police, prisons and other institutions consistently over many many years.”

Spokesperson for the family, Tippa Naphtali, said; “The family rejects the IPCC’s decision and will pursue whatever legal channels that remain open to them.”