Although Dijon and Liam Joseph welcome this week’s recommendations of the IOPC on improving how stop and search is used, it remains the case that their complaint to the IOPC failed, flagging on-going issues with the complaints system which need addressing alongside the IOPC recommendations. In a further effort to secure recognition of the discrimination they suffered, Dijon and Liam Joseph have today commenced legal proceedings against the police under the Equality Act.
Liam and Dijon Joseph were stopped and searched on Deptford High Street in February 2018, after exchanging a friendly fist bump. Police say they believed this to be an exchange of drugs but the brothers believe racial profiling lay behind their humiliating experience, and that this central fact has been brushed under the carpet by the investigations which followed. This remains the case notwithstanding the IOPC recommendations for improvement to the Met and legal proceedings are now their only route to seeing this acknowledged.
Carolynn Gallwey, a partner at Bhatt Murphy Solicitors acts for the brothers.
Read the Joseph brothers’ statement here and an article in today’s Guardian here.
The IOPC’s stop and search recommendations can be read here and the Guardian’s report about the IOPC review is linked here.
Read the Guardian’s 2018 report of the incident here.
