
THIS YEAR, March 25 would’ve been Blair Peach’s 79th birthday. Except on April 24 1979 he was killed by a police officer with what was then called the Special Patrol Group (SPG) in south London’s Southall after returning from an anti-racist demonstration.
Peach’s story is unfortunately not an isolated one — he wasn’t the first young anti-racist demonstrator killed “for a simple gesture of solidarity,” as one Southall resident put it, and he is by no means the last.
But Peach’s story is a remarkable one, because it is one that has left such an extraordinary legacy, one which finally opened up conversations about police brutality — especially within the excessively violent SPG — and the lack of accountability from a police force when their officers abused their power.







