Family vows to prosecute police

A woman whose brother died from head injuries after being hit with a police baton is to launch a private prosecution against officers.

Brian Douglas, 33, a music and boxing promoter, died in hospital a week after being stopped by police on his way home from a nightclub.

An inquest jury returned a verdict of misadventure, despite evidence by three independent pathologists that Mr Douglas had been struck with considerable force to the head.

Today his sister Brenda Weinberg said the family had been "badly let down" by the judicial system and that a private prosecution, for which they need to raise £1 million, is their last chance to take on the Metropolitan Police.

She said: "My brother died eight years ago and we are still fighting for justice. We have waited too long and shed too many tears for Brian. The time to act is now."

Mr Douglas, from Streatham, was returning home with a friend in May 1995 when his car was stopped in Clapham by two police officers. They admit using batons to restrain him before bundling him into a van and taking him to Kennington police station. He was kept at the station for 15 hours before being taken to hospital.

Five days later he was dead, having suffered a fractured skull and damage to his brain stem. The officers claim they struck his upper arm but the baton "slid" up to his neck.

However, witnesses told the inquest they saw an officer strike him directly to the head. Evidence was given at the hearing that Mr Douglas had been hit with considerable force.

The misadventure verdict was later challenged unsuccessfully by the family in the High Court.

Mrs Weinberg, manager of a Bond Street boutique, today described the heartache of losing her sociable, confident brother who was engaged to his long-term girlfriend. "Brian went out one night and never came home," said Mrs Weinberg, who lives in Tooting with her husband and teenage daughter.

"Fighting for justice is not a question of choice. When you stop, it means you have accepted what happened to the person you loved is okay. I will never accept that.

"Of course, one has to move forward, one has a job, one has a family. But I have lost a member of my family in the worst circumstances imaginable and nobody has been tried for his death. My family has been badly let down by the judicial system - a system I was brought up to believe in."

The case of Brian Douglas is highlighted in Injustice, a documentary about the struggles of the London families of black men and women who have died in police custody.

The film, released in 2001, chronicles other deaths including those of Shiji Lapite and Ibrahim Sey, both of whom died in the mid-Nineties from injuries allegedly sustained while in police custody.

It also covers the case of Joy Gardner, who died after a police raid on her home. Lawyers acting for the Police Federation have repeatedly prevented it from being shown in public, branding it "libellous" for naming key officers involved, while British television channels have refused to show it.

According to Home Office figures, an average of 50 people have died in police custody every year since the Eighties. No police officer has ever been convicted of any of these deaths.

Later this month, the Attorney-General is due to publish his report on the decision-making process of the Crown Prosecution Service in deaths in police custody cases.