Strathclyde Police (Racism)

Ms Sandra Osborne (Ayr): I welcome the opportunity to represent my constituent, Mr. Lawrence Ramadas. I also believe that the issues that I am about to raise have wider significance in relation to the race relations policy of Strathclyde police and the message that the general public can take from the case.

Thirteen years ago, Lawrence Ramadas joined Strathclyde police and was proud to be a police officer. He believed that he had a great future with the police. His ambition was to join the traffic department, but, despite passing sergeant and inspector promotion exams within four years of becoming a police constable, producing consistently good results in his annual appraisals and continually applying for positions, the extremely promising young officer was never transferred off the beat despite applying six times to the traffic department.

Lawrence Ramadas is a personable, intelligent and articulate young man who would be a credit to any force, but instead, 13 years after joining the police, he is homeless, jobless, virtually broke and his health has suffered. At one point, Mr. Ramadas lost his self-respect, but he has certainly gained my respect and that of many others in his tireless quest for justice.

On 11 February 1997, an industrial tribunal found that Lawrence Ramadas had been subjected to one of the worst forms of discrimination. He was discriminated against by Strathclyde police--and by Superintendent Gordon Macpherson in particular--because of the colour of his skin.

Many people may believe that if Strathclyde police were serious about their much-vaunted race relations policy and determined not to tolerate racism in the ranks, they would have apologised to Mr. Ramadas immediately and compensated him for his trauma and for the destruction of every facet of his life. Instead, Strathclyde police appealed and lost. Their lawyers applied almost immediately to overturn the ruling on the technicality that the claim was brought after the legal deadline.

Racism cannot be confined to individual acts. It is a process whioh leaves victims disabled, disempowered and vulnerable. That is not well understood in the tribunal or police procedures. I ask the Minister to consider the time bar. It is not easy to determine when an episode of racism began or ended.

A few weeks ago, the tribunal ruled

"with a considerable amount of regret"

that the time bar ruling applied and that no compensation could be awarded to Lawrence Ramadas. It added that the treatment meted out to Lawrence Ramadas was

"extremely serious with devastating effects"

and "an abuse of power". It concluded:

"It is frustrating for the tribunal to be unable to compensate him adequately."

Those on the tribunal could hardly have been more damning in their condemnation or have expressed their views more clearly. That there had been racism was established without doubt.

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Alas, the almost gloating reaction of the chief constable of Strathclyde, as reported in The Scotsman on 10 April, was:

"By virtue of the tribunal's adjudication upholding the time bar argument, the force has averted any award of damages from the police budget impacting on front-line service to the public."

That statement constitutes blatant and institutional racism. It is an insulting response which almost beggars belief. Strathclyde police remain guilty of racism, but managed to avoid recompensing a man whose life they have ruined because of a technicality--and they believe that they should be congratulated for so doing.

The chief constable pontificates that he will not tolerate racism, while in the same breath condoning proven racism, the tackling of which figures low in his priorities given his comments about saving public money. I wonder how much public money the police have spent to date on defending the indefensible.

After the findings of the first tribunal, the deputy chief constable, Mr. Richardson, announced that he had commissioned an independent inquiry into a breach of police discipline regulations. On Wednesday 26 February, Mr. Ramadas was interviewed by the investigating officer of the inquiry--Assistant Chief Constable MacKay--in the presence of his solicitor. At the outset, he was informed by Assistant Chief Constable MacKay that his sole remit was to investigate breaches of the police discipline regulations and that it had nothing to do with the industrial tribunal. I concur with that view.

However, Mr. Richardson deferred making a decision on possible disciplinary proceedings until the outcome of the employment tribunal was known, in spite of the police inquiry's recommendation that there was a case to answer. Mr. Richardson seems to want to have it both ways.

Surely the police discipline code and industrial tribunal legislation are quite separate entities under the law. The fact that Lawrence Ramadas has sought recourse to justice from an industrial tribunal surely does not absolve Strathclyde police of their responsibility as employers. In this case, however, Strathclyde police appear to have shirked their responsibility to make a decision on the independent report that they commissioned, and it appears that the decision whether to proceed with a discipline case is dependent on the outcome of an employment appeals tribunal.

Such a course of action cannot be correct or justified, and, in practice, means that the progress or otherwise of a discipline case is, de facto, being decided by an employment appeals tribunal. What if the employment appeals tribunal had decided that racist discrimination had not occurred? After some considerable time, would Strathclyde police have also decided that there was no case to answer? It is not surprising that Lawrence Ramadas believes that, by continually deferring a decision on the independent report, Strathclyde police were hoping that the whole sad episode would simply go away or be quietly forgotten, and that the perpetrator of the abuse would remain in a highly paid job and retire on a substantial pension, while the victim of his abuse is jobless, homeless and almost penniless, and cannot get another job the moment that he explains why he left the police service.

After various false starts, a date has been set for a disciplinary hearing. Apparently, the hearing was set for 4 February 1998, but was delayed until April at the

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request of the perpetrator's solicitor, who has sought a judicial review, challenging the competence of the chief constable to raise disciplinary proceedings. That has meant, of course, that the whole process has again ground to a halt, and it may be September before a disciplinary hearing is heard--depending on the result of the judicial review. The Tayside report recommending action was published in May 1997.

I have here a copy of Strathclyde police race relations policy. According to the chief constable, it is written with a view to dealing with racially motivated incidents that breach the criminal, not the civil, law. In other words, if the racially motivated incident is in-house, it will not be brought to public attention. If that is so, can any officer subject a colleague to racism with impunity because it is a civil and not a criminal offence?

The Lawrence Ramadas case is a clear example that the system is not working. It neither reflects an understanding of the structural causes of racism nor demonstrates a coherent practice based on sound equal opportunities policies for dealing with it. Nor is it equitable in giving access to witnesses and documentation--both of which were denied my constituent's solicitor. I therefore call on the Minister to initiate an investigation, outwith the police authorities, on the handling of the case, to consider where procedures can be improved and to ensure that justice prevails for Lawrence Ramadas. He seeks an acknowledgement of guilt, an apology and compensation for loss of earnings after 12 years' service in the police, damage to health, homelessness and the hurt, distress and trauma caused by the horrendous process.

I am not alone in my belief that the outcome to date has been unsatisfactory. I shall quote Mr. James Wylie, who was until recently office manager of the Scottish Police Federation in Glasgow and formerly a police officer for 30 years:

"I have worked for the Police for the last 39 years and generally thought highly of the service and the way in which it was run. This case has almost completely destroyed my faith in the service (at least at a senior level) and I would earnestly reiterate that some form of independent inquiry should be set up to examine the actions of Strathclyde Police senior management in this case. Surely someone, somewhere must be able to make Mr. Orr and his force accountable and responsible for the racism perpetrated against Lawrence Ramadas or does justice grind to a halt at the entry doors of Police Headquarters in Pitt Street?"

A petition is circulating in Scotland calling for compensation and a resolution to this case.

Lawrence Ramadas was a model police officer and an example to others. It may interest the House to know that there is still an appalling lack of representation from the ethnic minority community as far as police recruitment is concerned. In 1996, Scotland's eight forces had 40 ethnic minority recruits, only two of whom have been promoted to sergeant. Of 9,187 workers in the Strathclyde force, 33 officers and 17 support staff come from ethnic minority communities.

The race relations policy of the force states:

"Recruitment of police and force support personnel from black and ethnic minority communities will continue to be a priority of Strathclyde Police, which, as an employer, seeks to create a harmonious and productive working environment by adhering to a well-established and continuously reviewed equal opportunities policy."

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This did not work for Mr. Ramadas.

Mr. Ramadas was a model police officer and an example to others. On numerous occasions, he was paraded for the cameras and the press as an example of the positive measures Strathclyde police were taking to tackle racism and to recruit more officers from ethnic minority communities. However, Lawrence Ramadas now has no job. He had no equity and he had no justice. Strathclyde police have won an Investors in People award. Mr. Ramadas is not impressed by that award.

Strathclyde police, as a public service, represent the state and, in particular, the upholding of the law as part of the criminal justice process. They also have a duty to uphold a moral and civil message that racism is not acceptable. I look forward to my hon. Friend the Minister's comments, and I urge him to look at the situation as a matter of urgency.