Courtroom Ghosts

  One of these men is Adolf Beck. The other is not. Perhaps to you that is obvious, but in 1895 not everyone could tell the difference. Ottilie Meissonier, a language teacher, was walking down Victoria Street in London on her way to a flower show. A man approached her, tipped his hat, and asked, "Are you Lady Everton?" Ms Meissonier replied that she was not, but a conversation ensued between the two nonetheless. The man, who introduced himself as Lord Willoughby, told Ms Meissonier that he had a Lincolnshire estate which was so large that its upkeep required the employ of six gardeners. Bonding over their shared love of horticulture, Ms Meissonier invited her new acquaintance, the dashing and well-mannered Lord Willoughby, to tea the next day. He duly arrived the following afternoon and ended up inviting Ms Meissonier to the French Riviera, going so far as to offer to pay for new clothes for the trip. Giving her a cheque for £40, Willoughby then looked through her jewellery, ...

  In 1988, Stephen Miller was twenty-six years old, with a cocaine addiction and a 'mental age' of eleven. His girlfriend, twenty-year-old Lynette White, was engaged in sex work and used the majority of the money she earned to pay for Miller's addiction (some sources indicate that White earned around £100 a day and gave her boyfriend between £60 and £90). The couple lived together on Dorset Street, Cardiff. In early February 1988, as two criminal cases loomed in which White was expected to appear as a witness, it is believed that she decided to lay low to avoid giving evidence. The charges in both cases were serious - procurement of a thirteen-year-old girl for prostitution and, separately, attempted murder. The first trial was due to begin on 15th February, and a  judge had issued a warrant for her arrest in order to ensure her appearance; by 14th February, White had not made contact with Miller or anybody else for five days.  A fellow sex worker, Leanne Vilday, had...

Sheffield Evening Telegraph , 13th June 1919 It began in the January in Glasgow. Violence erupted between Black and white sailors waiting in a yard on James Watt Street, hoping to be hired. As the Black sailors fled, a mob of hundreds pursued them, armed with guns and blades. The police took thirty of the Black sailors into 'protective custody' and then  charged them with riot ; no white men were arrested. The two white sailors who were hurt were taken to hospital, while Tom Johnson, a Black man who had been stabbed, was taken straight to court. Over the next few months violence was perpetrated in cities across the UK, including in London, Liverpool, and Hull. On 6th June 1919, a Black man was attacked in Newport, South Wales, and the attack escalated as a white mob descended on anybody perceived to be non-white. Businesses and lodging houses were burned and eight houses were wrecked. Furniture belonging to two of the households was burned in the street. The day before, in Live...

  In 1981, fury, fear, and frustration reverberated across the capital's streets. In many retellings of these events, the 'racial tensions' of those early years of Thatcher's Britain 'erupted' into 'riots'. But 'racial tensions' seems a peculiar way of framing what was in fact many individual communities who all felt terrorised not only by white supremacist groups like the National Front, but also by racist police officers and the entire institution of rotten law enforcement. The Macpherson report, published in 1999 in response to the murder of Stephen Lawrence, condemned the Metropolitan Police as institutionally racist, a reality that was not news to the ethnic minority population of the capital. Indeed, the lived experienced of over-policing was viscerally felt by multiple generations. But that over-policing was only one side of the coin; prejudicial policing not only criminalises marginalised groups, it also fails to protect them.  Saturday n...