Chhokar Case

I was pleased to hear that the Crown Office in Scotland wants to retry the three men acquitted of killing Surjit Singh Chhokar back in November 1998, not least because the police are not looking for anyone else in connection with this cowardly crime.

I wrote about the case in a wider context almost 13 years ago and all this time later it appears the Chhokar family may finally receive justice if this statement from the Crown Office is anything to go by:

"The Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland QC, has today applied to the High Court for authority under the Double Jeopardy (Scotland) Act 2011 to set aside the acquittal of Ronnie Coulter, Andrew Coulter and David Montgomery and prosecute them again for the murder of Surjit Singh Chhokar."

Let's see what happens next.

Facing up to discrimination (11 December 2013)

I wrote this piece for the Business am newspaper more than 12 years ago, not long after I had left Unison and since then, if anything, the position has got worse.

Because the trade unions still behave like Labour only closed shops, recruiting only true believers into senior positions, while the Labour vote in Scotland has slumped still further - to nearer 30% rather than 40%.     

Facing up to discrimination

Accusations of discrimination strike a raw nerve these days. In the wake of the brutal murder of Stephen Lawrence no one wants to face the humiliation dished out to the Metropolitan Police. At the same time, the public reacts against the charge that prejudice is everywhere, on the streets, at work and in our homes. Surely, Scotland has a new politics; our public institutions don’t discriminate routinely against fellow citizens, do they?  

These are murky waters indeed. On the one hand there’s no doubt that discrimination is an everyday fact of life. Police in Scotland recorded 2,242 racial incidents last year, a 70% increase on 1998/99. What are the implications of Lord McPherson branding the biggest force in the UK institutionally racist?  

No one accused individual police officers of racism in the Stephen Lawrence case since that would have missed the point. The public inquiry concluded that the Metropolitan Police failed in its collective duty of care; that Stephen Lawrence and his family were treated badly because they mattered less, because police officers were initially unsympathetic, because race and colour were unspoken issues. 

In Scotland, the Chhokar family has also had to endure the pain of watching their son’s murderer go free, and the authorities are wholly to blame. The defence of the accused was hardly unique; pointing the finger at each other was predictable and should not have proved fatal to the prosecution case. How could such a basic mistake have occurred? The state now has to show this was not the result of casual prejudice. Although institutional racism is not about overt, deliberate acts, its effects can be just as powerful. Ultimately, it is hard to imagine the Chhokar family being treated so badly had they lived in Balerno or Newton Mearns. 

The Scottish executive is resisting calls for a public inquiry. The Chhokars have voted with their feet believing there is little point cooperating with a judicial inquiry that fails to protect their interests, as they see them. The reputation of Scottish justice must be damaged by the failure to find an agreed way forward. Officials and politicians seem oblivious to the lessons of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. Exceptional cases require exceptional solutions; satisfying the demands of a grieving family is surely not beyond the country’s most brilliant legal minds. 

Discrimination can be shocking, but it can be mundane as well, conditioned by a way of life. Reports confirm a pay gap still exists between men and women, despite legislation outlawing sex discrimination since 1975. Are nasty employers are to blame or is the problem more complex and deep-rooted? The uncomfortable truth is that much of the discrimination against women is structural, the result of how society organises itself. Women are still largely responsible for childcare. Stereotyping means that young women, even today, are more likely to become secretaries than managers. Changing these attitudes is the key to combating sex discrimination. Employers have a big responsibility, like everyone else, and deserve what they get for flouting the law, but in general the bosses are not blame. 

Scottish local government is the country’s biggest employer with around 280,000 workers. Women dominate the lowest pay scales and have done for generations. Trade unions demand an equality led approach, equal pay audits to tackle the problem. The reality is that sex discrimination by employers is not the problem; women get stuck on the bottom of the pay ladder because society hands men and women different roles. Part-time cleaners (one of the largest groups) are trapped by jobs with few opportunities, not by glass ceilings. How about training people to become classroom assistants or teachers even, as adult returners to education, supported by proper childcare facilities? Now that would be radical! 

           

Unions are often at the forefront of the equality debate. Unfortunately, their track record as equal opportunity employers is appalling. Most have far to travel before promoting themselves as non-discriminatory employers, particularly in Scotland. Equal opportunity employers reflect the local environment and believe in tackling any imbalances in the composition of the workforce. Why then are virtually all senior union officials active members of the Labour Party?   

Embarrassingly, the answer is that unions institutionally discriminate against non-Labour supporters. An SNP or a Lib Dem supporter could be a typist in a Labour affiliated trade union, but not a manager. The movement is in favour of equal opportunities, but politics gets in the way of unions acting as good employers. In Scotland, less than 40% of members support the Labour Party, yet statistically impossible numbers dominate trade union hierarchies. 

In polite company, people put their own house in order before telling others how to run their affairs. Trade unions are no exception, but would run a mile from an independent equal opportunities based audit of their employment practices.     

Mark A. Irvine

April 2001