PRESS RELEASE – 01 MAY 2024 – FORMER LORD ADVOCATE JAMES WOLFFE KC- ADMITS FAILURE TO INVESTIGATE RACE WAS A ‘MISSED OPPORTUNITY’
1ST MAY 2024 -PRESS RELEASE- SHEKU BAYOH PUBLIC INQUIRY
AAMER ANWAR – SOLICITOR – STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE SHEKU BAYOH FAMILY
FORMER LORD ADVOCATE JAMES WOLFFE KC- ADMITS FAILURE TO INVESTIGATE RACE WAS A ‘MISSED OPPORTUNITY’
The Bayoh family placed their faith in the Lord Advocate James Wolffe KC to fearlessly investigate and prosecute the death in custody of Sheku. His family had the right to expect there would be a robust, transparent and impartial investigation, yet as the country’s most senior prosecutor, Mr. Wolffe failed.
Over the course of the last two days, the Bayoh family have heard the evidence of Mr. Wolffe and heard him repeatedly say ‘with the benefit of hindsight’, but on each and every one of those occasions on behalf of the family over 4 years I requested that action be taken. Yet on Mr. Wolffe’s watch, his Crown Office is accused of cynically manipulating events, abusing the human rights of the Sheku’s family and doing everything to obstruct their search for truth.
What exactly were Crown Office doing for 4 years with all their resources? They repeatedly failed to investigate race, they instructed the wrong experts, treated the Bayoh’s with contempt, presented the wrong facts to experts and then failed to prosecute.
The Bayoh family hold this former Lord Advocate ultimately responsible for the betrayal of justice and presiding over a culture of incompetence, denial, secrecy, bias and institutional racism.
The former Lord Advocate confirmed today, two days before the 9th anniversary of Sheku’s death, what the family have always known, the Crown never really investigated racism, and he called it a ‘missed opportunity’.
Mr. Wolffe’s shameful admission, is too little too late, how many black people have to die, how many more families must set up campaigns to simply get to the truth. In 2001 the very same Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service was found to be intuitionally racist, following the racist murder of Surjit Singh Chhokar, sadly it would appear that little lessons have been learned or acted upon by an unaccountable institution.
Mr Wolffe’s evidence was completed today and he will be followed on Thursday 2nd May, by Lord Mulholland KC, the former Lord Advocate in 2015-16.
