Bristol refugee murder review accuses police of institutional racism

The family of an Iranian refugee murdered by a vigilante after years of abuse have expressed relief that an independent review has vindicated their campaign to expose institutional racism within a police force and council.

A review concluded that Avon and Somerset police and Bristol city council wrongly perceived Bijan Ebrahimi as a troublemaker rather than a victim and sided with his white abusers.

Ebrahimi’s family emphasised the significance of the review’s finding of institutional racism – the most explicit against a police force since the 1999 Macpherson report on the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in London, and the first of its kind against a local authority.

Both organisations accepted the findings of the report by the Safer Bristol Partnership and said they would continue to work with Ebrahimi’s family to tackle the failings.

Ebrahimi’s sisters, Mojgan Khayatian and Manizhah Moores, said it was important their deep concerns had been officially recognised, more than four years after their brother’s death.

They said: “Bijan always fought for the truth, which is what we have tried to do in his name. He never gave up on trying to make things better and neither will we.

“It’s been a long battle. No review can ever bring back our beloved Bijan but it is important that his voice has been heard. Bijan always said that racism must be challenged wherever it is found, including in town halls and police stations.”

Ebrahimi, 44, was punched and kicked to death by his neighbour Lee James, who had mistakenly thought he was a paedophile. James and another neighbour dragged Ebrahimi’s body to a green in front of his home in Brislington, south Bristol, doused him with white spirit and set fire to him. James was jailed for life.

Avon and Somerset police apologised in the summer after the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said in a report that the force had failed Ebrahimi.

The force has been working with his sisters to try to improve its procedures. It said on Monday: “Mr Ebrahimi was treated differently, to his detriment and without objective reason.”

Ebrahimi’s family said the council had been slow to acknowledge its failings. “Bristol city council took nearly five years to accept it failed Bijan and the need for change. This is far too long, although late is better than never. We will not rest until improved systems are put in place to protect other vulnerable people,” they said.

The new report says Ebrahimi’s death left a “hole in the lives of his sisters and young nephews that they feel can never be filled”. It adds: “They feel an indescribable emptiness and their lives will never be the same again.”

The sisters said they would never have got to the truth without the support of the Bristol agency Stand Against Racism and Inequality (SARI) and their lawyers. “We worry about bereaved families who don’t have that support. How do they ever find the truth? We now look forward to working with the mayor and holding the council to account.”

Bristol’s mayor, Marvin Rees, apologised, accepted there had been institutional racism and said he would work with Ebrahimi’s family to try to prevent the occurrence of another such tragedy.

The multi-agency learning review spells out that from 2005 until his death in 2013, Ebrahimi reported dozens of times that he had been the victim of racially motivated offending.

He made about 44 allegations to the police that he had been the victim of a crime or multiple crimes, the report says. These included 17 recorded allegations of assault, seven of threats to kill, five of harassment, five of criminal damage, 12 of public order-related offences and one of cruelty to an animal – his cat Mooshi.

On one occasion boiling water was thrown over his head; he was also the victim of an arson attack. One relative told the review she had witnessed him being called a “Paki” and a “cockroach” and being told: “Go back to your own country.”

But before Ebrahimi’s death only one person was convicted of an offence – in relation to the scalding incident.

The report says: “There is evidence that Mr Ebrahimi was repeatedly targeted for racist abuse and victimisation by some members of the public, that this was repeatedly reported to Avon and Somerset constabulary and Bristol city council and that representatives of both organisations repeatedly sided with his abusers.

“The more incidents that were reported, the more ingrained this pattern of responses became.”

Ebrahimi himself was arrested on 15 occasions from the date of his arrival in the UK in 2001 but was never prosecuted. On one occasion, Bristol city council obtained an antisocial behaviour order against him rather than against the neighbours he was complaining about.

The report says this was “misconceived and served as official confirmation of his perceived status as the primary perpetrator rather than the primary victim”.

It says there was an incorrect prevailing view among some neighbours that Ebrahimi was a paedophile. “The authorities were aware of that view, took no steps to correct it and it is possible that the silence of agencies on this may have been taken by some as confirmation of local suspicions,” the report says.

“On occasions, Mr Ebrahimi was treated with disrespect and even contempt by some police officers,” it continues.

The report concludes: “Those victimising him were overwhelmingly of white European origin and the neighbourhoods within which he lived were predominantly inhabited by residents of white European origin … Bijan Ebrahimi was isolated. His complaints resulted in little action.

“As an Iranian man living in this environment, Mr Ebrahimi was disadvantaged by the inappropriate responses by Avon and Somerset constabulary and Bristol city council to his racist victimisation.

“Representatives of those organisations displayed a distinct lack of understanding of his plight and, accordingly, unwitting prejudice against him.”

The report sets out a definition of institutional racism from the Macpherson report: “The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.”

The Ebrahimi report says: “There is therefore, based on the above definition from the Macpherson report, evidence of both discriminatory behaviour and institutional racism on the part of Bristol city council and Avon and Somerset constabulary.”

The family’s solicitor, Tony Murphy, of Bhatt Murphy, said: “Acknowledging the institutional nature of the racism at the core of this tragedy is an essential first step towards systemic change.”

Two members of the Avon and Somerset force – PC Kevin Duffy, a beat manager, and Andrew Passmore, a community support officer – were jailed for misconduct in a public office over their dealings with Ebrahimi. They and two other constables, Leanne Winter and Helen Harris, have been dismissed from the force.