When the media failed them, bereaved families found their own voice

Hey there,

Before we start, this edition includes stories of fatal police shootings and bereavement. It also contains stories of bereaved people fighting injustice and having their voices heard.

So if you’d prefer to skip this week or save it for later, I’ll see you next time. 

Twenty years ago today, on 30 April 2005, Susan Alexander received the call that her healthy 24-year-old son, Azelle Rodney, was dead. He had been shot at eight times by a Metropolitan police officer after a car he was in had been forcibly stopped by police.

In the years that followed, the incident prompted a case in the European Court of Human Rights that led the UK government to apologise to the family. There was also a public inquiry, which found Azelle was unlawfully killed, as well as a murder trial for the police officer. And yet it is only now that Susan feels that her voice is being heard.

In a new podcast by the charity INQUEST, Susan tells the story of what happened to Azelle and the effect it had on her during the two decades since his death. The podcast Unlawful Killing is now in its third season and has recently been shortlisted for an Amnesty media award. 

It was created partly as a response to a mainstream media that too often fails to represent the experiences of those who die at the hands of the state, and the families who are left fighting for justice.

Unlawful Killing is co-presented by Lee Lawrence. To him, Susan’s experiences are all too familiar. Lee’s mother Cherry Groce was shot by the Metropolitan police in 1985, and suffered life-changing injuries. An inquest found that her premature death in 2011 was the result of being shot. 

The shooting of Cherry Groce at home in front of her children sparked the Brixton uprisings. Lee was just 11 when he witnessed the shooting, alongside four of his siblings. Police had raided their home searching for his eldest brother, who was not there and did not live there.

Within hours of her being shot, when Cherry was still in hospital and the family didn’t know if she was alive, journalists were inside the home and taking pictures of Lee and his siblings. Later that day they saw a news broadcast reporting – wrongly – that Cherry was dead. 

Cherry’s family endured many more negative experiences with the media in the years that followed, struggling to have their voices heard and the truth exposed.

INQUEST works with families bereaved by deaths involving the state, including police, prison and mental health services. The charity was founded in 1981 by a collective of bereaved people and campaigners. Since then it has supported thousands of families fighting for justice and change.

TBIJ’s own Lucy Brisbane McKay (the other Lucy!) helped create the podcast and continues to co-present it with Lee Lawrence. 

Lee told TBIJ: “The podcast is about reclaiming the narrative. For myself and many people who have lost their loved ones at the hands of the state, we see that the media is getting most information directly from the state. We often don’t feel like our voices have been heard.

“The podcast is about balancing things, allowing family members to have their say, speak from their perspective, and be in a comfortable environment. In a way it is for the people, by the people. The bereaved people we speak to know that they're in safe hands.”

Through family interviews, woven in with conversations and archive materials, Lucy and Lee explore the historical and social significance of deaths from recent and not-so-recent history. Some of their interviewees are discussing well-known cases. Others have never spoken publicly, until now. 

The podcast focuses on numerous cases, but one theme is consistent: the families don’t just want justice for their loved ones – they want to tell their own stories. They want to ensure the injustice their families have faced never happens to anyone else.

Listening to the voices of bereaved people is one way of standing against the injustices faced by Cherry, Azelle, and the many other people who die at the hands of the state.

“My son Azelle was only 24 when he died, he was young. He was a good-looking boy with a really kind, infectious smile. He was an aspiring footballer. Azelle was a good person who was loved by a lot of people in the community. But how his story was told in the media ruined a lot of our relationships with people. 

When Azelle was shot the first story that came out in the news was so small, it was no bigger than a postage stamp. But the words were, ‘the man was holding a firearm’. That embedded in people’s minds [the idea] that he must have had a gun and he deserved it.

~ The report Susan mentions was circulated by the Press Association to various newspapers just hours after Azelle’s death. The police later retracted the statement and apologised to the family. Many years later, the public inquiry confirmed that Azelle was not in fact holding a gun, but the damage was done. ~ 

One thing I learned through my experiences is that people have to ask questions about what they see in the news. The media is powerful and it can be a force for good. But often people don’t ask enough questions until something happens in their neighbourhood or happens to them.

In the beginning I’d have journalists ringing me up. I didn’t know who I was talking to. I just thought these were all good people. I just wanted to get exposure. I didn’t know what I was getting into and I ended up having a very bad experience. 

Then when they announced the public inquiry I had to sign a confidentiality agreement and really be quiet. So after all that I just stopped talking. It felt like that was just part of the system attempting to keep me quiet and go away. But I never went away.

My confidence was knocked but now in the last few years I’ve been able to come back. The way the INQUEST podcast was done – I trusted them, I felt comfortable and I could see that this is something good. It allowed me to be myself and answer important questions and be heard.

I want to make a difference. I’ve had to wait all this time but now it feels like things are starting to happen, and I’ve got something here and I want to get it out and speak about it.”

This week’s topic wasn’t easy – but it matters. Thanks for sticking with me, for thinking deeply, and for caring. These are the difficult conversations that push us closer towards justice.

Until next week,