On the 22nd of december last yearthree women returning from
a night outwere brutally attacked byracists in northwest londonhas investigated
the police response towhat was recordedas an extremely violent race hateincidentone
of the most serious categories ofcrime when i was in that corner.
I wascovering my head
like thisi was thinking my son's not going tohave a mumandi'm going to be deadwe
can reveal the police investigationwas half-heartedand disastrously slow one
very seniorformer police officer told meit was negligent and so far theattackers
have evaded justiceniet farah grew up in cardiff but haslived in london for the
past 13 yearsshe works for the charity that helpsex-prisoners she loves to run
in herspare timeon the 21st of december last year shewas out with two friendsit
was getting late so nia's friendsdecided to stay the night at her flat inkilburnall
three women are of somali descentthey decided to go to this 24-hourconvenience
store for some snacks totake homeone of nyad's friends is swedish and wastalking
to a friend on the phonein swedish we've agreed to protect heridentityso we'll
call her iman there was twogirls in the shopand.
I was talking to my
friend inswedishand the girl said talk englishi wasn't thinking anything of it
but shewas standing before usin in the queue andshe's starting making comments
iremember there was twotwo girls and one of them said to myfriendthis is f in
england speak f in englishiman left the shop leaving her twofriends insideone
of the girl came out and punched mein my faceshe punched you in the face as
nyet wentto help her friendshe heard shouts from the other side ofthe roadshe
says a group of seven white men hademerged from a parked vanand were
approachingnyad wanted to show me what happenednext from the safetyof my car
when they crossed the road andthey got out the vani was punched inside of my
head there sothey punched me and i fell on the floorright where the vegetables
wereand then i'm just trying to catch mybreathand then my friend was on the
floorthere in front of meand she was being beat up so i got uptried to comfort
herand then they dragged me into thedoorwayit's incredibly raw for you
obviously ithinkwe should probably drive offniad says the van was dark coloured
witha sliding door on the side and the manleading the other six had bawled hisfistand
was shouting racist abuse at herhe's just like he had his fist like thislikeand
he was likeand i remember i just took my arm off myfriend and i was just likewhat
and then the other one came the onethat was very smartly dressed he wasbehind
himand then he punched me thereand i remember i fell on the floorall three
women were being punched[Music]nied was kicked unconscious all seven ofthem was
aroundus and then i remember the one withuh that was smartly dressed with a
blackjackethe pulled me to a doorwaythat was a doorway next to the shop nextto
the shop yeahhe pulled me in the doorway and then hewashe was stamping on me
and then i wasdoing thisand then and you were on the floor i wason the floor in
that doorwayand all i did was i was like at thatpoint i thoughti'm dead i'm
gonna be dead and then idid thisand then i can see through like here andthere
that i was being kickedi remember there was four differenttypes of shoesbecause
when they were kicking me i canseethe shoes that were hitting me and thenone of
them held the railingand i was like being stamped onand then there was kicks
coming everyangle of my bodyand i was just curled up on the floorlike thati
remember one of them came to kickingme furtherand he was saying oh they're not
theseare not pthese are not these areso yeah that's um those were the wordsthat
i i clearly remember yeahthe only thing i could see when i stoodup was her eyes
was rollingback so you saw her eyes roll back inher head and she was being
dragged intothe doorway of a shopand still being kicked when they draggedher
yeah to that place they dragged herfrom one place the next place to stillkick
herwhat did you think about that did youfeel gonna die i was punched inside ofmy
head therebob quick has 32 years experience ofdealing with violent crimehe was
head of specialist operations atthe met and before thatchief constable of
surrey police andthen my friend was on the floor therethis was an attack of
extreme violencethis is indicative of people who are apublic menaceand need to
be identified and brought tojusticean incident of this nature could quitelegitimately
have been described acritical incidentit had potential to really impact oncommunity
confidenceit was a serious crime in its own rightand it wascompounded by racial
motivation theevidence of which is cleari remember that i looked in the mirrorin
my bathroomand there was all blood pouring down myface i had it all over mymy
coat my hands were all full of bloodand then i was look i was doing this tomy
headand i remember i as i was doing that iput my finger in a holeand this is my
finger about that muchwent into my headand um and then i realizedthat i had a
hole in my headher friends had called 999 twoconstables responded to the callafter
40 minutes waiting for anambulance nia says she persuaded thepoliceman to take
her to hospitalnyad's head wound was sealed and she hada scan was put on opioid
pain reliefand then i woke up and there was twopolice officers next to me and
mytwo friends she says one of the officersstarted to question her about what
hadhappened was you buying anything offthemand i was like no is he implying
thatyou were trying to buy drugshe was literally just implying that weknew the
guysthat we were buying stuff off them umthat it was almost impossible for theracist
attack to happen in that areaand it was the repetition of thequestionsit was i
felt like i was beinginterrogatedby their account that does implythe officers
at the scene were workingon some sort of assumption that theyeither knewuh the
perpetrators or were in some wayengaging with them maybe buying drugsor
whatever if that's truethen that's inexcusable the policeabsolutely have a duty
to be objectiveand not to jump to conclusions so didracist assumptionsundermine
the police investigation thewomen say they didthe met denies the claim we can't
besure if wrong assumptionshampered the investigation but what wedo knowis that
it was fatally flawed by aseries of basic mistakes after thisthe response seems
to have been prettywoefulyou would have expected this to beprioritizedimmediately
by the senior officer onduty andfor standard operating procedures toapplyand
that would mean officers at thescenefreezing the scene so that a scenemanagementexercise
can be undertaken for searchingfor any forensic clueswho knows what may have
been dropped bya suspect for all we know one of thesuspectsmay have had an
injury and left blood atthe sceneit's essential to act fast in a criminalinvestigation
to preserve evidencethis is known as the golden hourit's a very busy high
street there wouldhave beenlots of opportunities to recover cctvimagery which
may have identifiedsome of the perpetrators or the vehiclethat was described by
the witnessesand the victims that the suspects madeoff onso there were lots of
opportunitiesreally to solve this crime and it's notclear to me that they were
takenon the 13th of january i came here downkilburn lane looking for cctv
evidenceit's what the police should have beendoing before christmas i found
thiscamera here attached to the greengrocery shop overlooking the attacklocationnow
if the police had come beforechristmas they could have got vitalevidencebecause
this camera might have caughtthe men crossing the roadand attacking the three
womenno effort was made to recover cctv fromneighboring shopsuntil the new year
and by then thefootage had been recycledoverwritten by new materialand it's
unclear if there was anyinvestigation into whether there werelinks between the
original two womenand the men in the van and the vanitselfwas not traced near
says she had tochase the police to make a statementafter one officer told her
it would notbe necessaryhe said to me oh we have no evidenceno cctv camera
absolutelylike no line of inquiry so thereforewe can't take no statements off
youso basically there's nothing that we cando for you at allthat is
extraordinary though because thestatements from you and your friendsthat would
have been crucial evidenceyeah absolutelyafter he had insisted the police didtake
a statementbut not until two months after theattackno statements have ever been
taken fromher two friendsthe two pcs who'd first attended thecrime scenesaid
they passed the case over towestminster cid in decemberand it was cid that
decided not topursue itthey said we left it for them when wewent off for
christmasand they've left usdetails to basically say that it wasn'tgoing to bea
cid case because my injuries weren'tsevere enough so they passed it back tousso
i said to him so i asked him aquestion i said so what injuries do ineed to
sustainfor for it to be taken seriously.
I saiddo i have to be
dead we asked themetropolitan police about the women'sallegationthat they've
been racially profiled asblack womenon a night out buying drugs the met toldusthis
line of questioning should not beconsidered as an officer making anyassumptions
or doubting the accountgiven by a victimand we refute any suggestion that thisis
what happened in this caseour officers always keep an open mind asto the
circumstances of any attackand must build an understanding of thefacts from a
very early stagethis was treated as a serious raciallyaggravated assaultcommitted
by people unknown to thevictimswe also put our questions about missedopportunities
to the metin an extraordinary admission aspokesman told us that the attack
couldhave qualifiedas a critical incident and mistakes weremadewe accept that
this particular incidentshould have been escalated andprioritized at an earlier
stagethere was a delay in the necessaryfollow-up inquiries being madejust after
the incident and thishindered the subsequent investigationthis shouldn't have
happened and we aresorry for letting the victims in thiscase downthis was an
appalling attack whichshould have been investigated withgreater urgencyfor nia
the last 10 months have beendeeply traumaticand she still can't bear to return
homefor now it seems her racist attackershave got away with iti have zero trust
in the police nowand they didn't help me when i was mostat needi've had to live
with the trauma of notknowing that i'm never going to getjusticebecause of
their incompetence and themjust not takingmy case serious the perpetrators of
thiscrime you know clearly represent adanger to the public if they're preparedto
use that type of violence and if theyareparticularly motivated by raceso i i i
would have expectedsignificant resources to be allocated tothis investigationand
for a determined search anda determined pursuit of all theavailable leadsin
response to newsline's investigationthe metropolitan policeadmitted it failed
nyad and her twofriendsthe case is being reopened with a seniordetective in
chargebut the police now say mistakes anddelays were so seriousthere's no
guarantee of justiceand 10 months on from the attack thegang of violentracist
men are still free
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