Speaker 1: London in January is a particular kind of dark. The
Speaker 1: city doesn't go quiet, but it empties out in a
Speaker 1: different way in the small hours of a winter morning.
Speaker 1: The bus is then out, the straights narrow around a
Speaker 1: few people still in them. Eight and a half mine
Speaker 1: miles northeast of Chasing Cross lies Edmonton. It's a time
Speaker 1: that most Londoners have driven through without stopping, crossed in transit,
Speaker 1: glimpsed from a boss or the elevated sections of the
Speaker 1: A four oh six. It sits in the London borough
Speaker 1: of Enfield, and it isn't a glamorous part of London.
Speaker 1: Edmonton has a long history as a settlement, and by
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties it had become a popular North shopping destination,
Speaker 1: but the decades that followed weren't kind to it. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies, the town was substantially redeveloped.
Speaker 1: The old street patterns disrupted, tar blocks erected a large
Speaker 1: indoor shopping center built at Edmonton Green that pulled what
Speaker 1: retail life remained away from the older roads. By the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties it was a working class area. Silver Street,
Speaker 1: which ran east to west through Upper Edmonton had once
Speaker 1: been part of the A four oh six before road
Speaker 1: reconfiguration shifted the main traffic flow and left it running
Speaker 1: parallel to the new alignment. The stretch of road now
Speaker 1: called Sterling Way, where Silver Strait meets the junction of
Speaker 1: the North Circular carried the through traffic. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: place where you would choose to be alone at nearly
Speaker 1: two in the morning in January. The night of the
Speaker 1: twenty seventh of January nineteen ninety seven was cold. The
Speaker 1: temperature had dropped through the evening, and the straits around
Speaker 1: Sterling Way were largely empty. A driver was coming along
Speaker 1: the North Circular Road that night when he saw flames
Speaker 1: in the distance. As he drew closer, he could see
Speaker 1: a figure on the grass verge at the side of
Speaker 1: the road. It was a man, and he was on fire.
Speaker 1: He was pulling in his own clothing, trying to take
Speaker 1: them from his body, staggering and stumbling in the dark.
Speaker 1: Michael Tachi Manson was born in Moscow in July of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six. He was the son of a Ghanian diplomat.
Speaker 1: His father, Alfred Manson, was posted to the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: at the time, and so Michael's earliest years were shaped
Speaker 1: or shaped by the grey corridors of Cold War diplomacy.
Speaker 1: It was a life that was defined by movement, adoption,
Speaker 1: and the particular resilience required of children raised at the
Speaker 1: edges of other countries. Alfred's work took the family across
Speaker 1: a number of different countries before they eventually settled in
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom in nineteen sixty eight, when Michael was
Speaker 1: just two years old. He was the seventh of eleven children,
Speaker 1: and by all accounts, the Menson household was a close one.
Speaker 1: As one sibling would later recall, they were a quiet
Speaker 1: family in their way. They didn't do a great deal
Speaker 1: outside the home, but they entertained each other. Michael's sister
Speaker 1: Essie roma for a long time, we only spoke gannion
Speaker 1: at home. It was also a religious household. My mother
Speaker 1: was a Methodist, so we all went to church and
Speaker 1: we all sang in the choir. The siblings became accomplished
Speaker 1: choristers and joined the English National Opera, touring the country
Speaker 1: performing in productions of Dare Rose and Cavalier. Michael's brother
Speaker 1: Quezi remembered it was a first real experience of London,
Speaker 1: being up in the city, being up there at night.
Speaker 1: Michael did well at school. He studied a levels of
Speaker 1: Brent College and went on to obtain higher national qualifications
Speaker 1: in microelectronics at Middlesex Polytechnic. He was bright, and quiet
Speaker 1: and diligent, and for a time it seemed to his
Speaker 1: future lay somewhere in the orderly world of engineering and electronics.
Speaker 1: But London in the late nineteen eighties had other ideas.
Speaker 1: It was during Michael's college years that the dance and
Speaker 1: Ray of Seine began to quietly run through the Capitol,
Speaker 1: and Michael's love for dance music was born. He became
Speaker 1: a regular DJ, drawn into a world that felt very
Speaker 1: different from the one he had been raised in. Alongside
Speaker 1: his friends Carl Brown and Lee Guest, he formed a
Speaker 1: group called Double Trouble. They were producers and DJs in
Speaker 1: the hip houset scene, and they caught the attention of
Speaker 1: the Desired label. Their collaborations with the Rebel MC produced
Speaker 1: two records that broke through in nineteen eighty nine, Just
Speaker 1: Keep Rocking, which reached number eleven on the UK Singles charts,
Speaker 1: and Street Tuff, which climbed to number three and became
Speaker 1: the biggest hit of their careers. Street Toff also became
Speaker 1: a top ten hit across several European countries. The three
Speaker 1: men traveled around Europe, and they appeared on Top of
Speaker 1: the Pops, performing on a stage that millions of households
Speaker 1: tuned into every Thursday evening. Michael's family was surprised and delighted.
Speaker 1: His sister Essie later recalled watching him in those moments
Speaker 1: and being struck by how alive her brother seemed, how
Speaker 1: inclusive and joyful. Michael wanted his success to include the family,
Speaker 1: she said. He wanted to make sure the music career
Speaker 1: he was building was still in line with who they were,
Speaker 1: with their values. She remembered herself and some of the
Speaker 1: siblings going to his recordings. She said Mike felt very
Speaker 1: strongly about getting recognition, not just for himself, but for
Speaker 1: the whole family. He saw himself as a representative of
Speaker 1: his culture. Double Trouble released their debut album as One,
Speaker 1: which spawned further singles including Don't Give Up and Take Back,
Speaker 1: But the momentum that had carried them into the charts
Speaker 1: began to slow, as it so often does. The recession
Speaker 1: hit in the early nineteen nineties, and their last track
Speaker 1: made it only to sixty six in the charts. They
Speaker 1: spoke about a set second album, but it never materialized.
Speaker 1: The band then broke up in nineteen ninety three. For Michael,
Speaker 1: the years that followed were difficult ones. He suffered a
Speaker 1: mental breakdown and was subsequently diagnosed and traded for schizophrenia.
Speaker 1: The condition was serious and unpredictable, and it changed the
Speaker 1: shape of his life considerably. From nineteen ninety one onwards,
Speaker 1: he was in and out of hospital and his social
Speaker 1: world contracted around him. He was sad and confused by it,
Speaker 1: one family member said, desperate to get back on track,
Speaker 1: always apologizing, but his sister said that he was always
Speaker 1: determined that his mental health problems would not defeat him.
Speaker 1: He remained close to his family throughout all of it.
Speaker 1: That much never changed. Whatever the illness had taken from him,
Speaker 1: the career, the certainty, the forward momentum of a young
Speaker 1: man who had once stood on a BBC stage at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty two. It didn't take that. Over
Speaker 1: Christmas nineteen ninety six, Michael stayed with family members. When
Speaker 1: he left them after the holiday, they described him as
Speaker 1: upbeat and lively. It was the last Christmas the family
Speaker 1: would ever spend together. The night of the twenty seventh
Speaker 1: of January nineteen ninety seven was cold. Michael had been
Speaker 1: given lay from Chase Farm Hospital and he was staying
Speaker 1: at Holden Lodge, a supported housing unit in North London
Speaker 1: where he had recently moved. That night, at about ten pm,
Speaker 1: his sister Chay pound him to tell him a message
Speaker 1: had come through from the hospital. He was needed back
Speaker 1: for a ward rund. It was a routine thing. Michael
Speaker 1: had made the journey countless times. So he left Holding
Speaker 1: Lodge and he caught a bus somewhere along the way. However,
Speaker 1: he boarded the wrong bus. He ended up getting off
Speaker 1: in Edmonton, in North London, not where he was meant
Speaker 1: to be. There were four men on the bus. One
Speaker 1: of them had been wearing a black leather jacket. When
Speaker 1: Michael got off the bus, they followed him. He remembered
Speaker 1: leaning on the gates of a church and then he
Speaker 1: felt something on his back. They had robbed him first,
Speaker 1: then doused him inflammable liquid and set him on fire.
Speaker 1: Michael managed to stagger more than three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: yards while on fire before collapsing semi conscious on the street.
Speaker 1: He had ripped off all his burning clothing and left
Speaker 1: behind a trail of charred flesh and clothing. At around
Speaker 1: one forty in the morning, an off Judy firefighter was
Speaker 1: driving home along the North Circular Road when he came
Speaker 1: across a man burning at the roadside near the junction
Speaker 1: of Sterling Way in Silver Street. He stopped immediately, dampened
Speaker 1: out the flames and called nine one one. Michael had
Speaker 1: sustained full thickness third degree burns to thirty percent of
Speaker 1: his body, his black, his bodocks, his upper thighs. He
Speaker 1: was in severe shock. An ambulance arrived and Michael was
Speaker 1: taken to North Middlesex Hospital before being transferred to the
Speaker 1: Regional Burns Unit at a nearby hospital where the severity
Speaker 1: of his injuries could be better treated. But then something
Speaker 1: went wrong, not with Michael's treatment, but with everything around it.
Speaker 1: The two police officers who had attended the scene didn't
Speaker 1: treat the circumstances of Michael's discovery as suspicious. They assumed,
Speaker 1: without investigation that Michael had set fire to himself. He
Speaker 1: told them that he had been attacked. The officers left
Speaker 1: the scene. When Michael was taken the hospital. They didn't
Speaker 1: cordon off the area, they didn't preserve the crime scene.
Speaker 1: They said in motion, no investigation whatsoever. Because Michael was
Speaker 1: a psychiatric patient. The police had concluded that the injuries
Speaker 1: must have been self inflicted. That assumption had been made
Speaker 1: in the dark at the roadside in minutes, and it
Speaker 1: would prove extraordinarily difficult to dislodge. Meanwhile, at the hospital,
Speaker 1: Michael was conscious. He underwent skin grafts and operations. His brother,
Speaker 1: Questy was able to visit him in the hospital. He
Speaker 1: found Michael lying on his back in his hospital bed, awake,
Speaker 1: alert and lucid. Michael told them he had been attacked
Speaker 1: by some boys near a phone box. He had tried
Speaker 1: to put himself out. He had rolled around on the ground.
Speaker 1: He then asked his brother, why did they do this
Speaker 1: to me? Despite the pain and the trom Michael appeared
Speaker 1: to be optimistic about his recovery. Michael's brother telephoned Edmonton
Speaker 1: Police station that same morning and told them what Michael
Speaker 1: had said, that he had been attacked by four white boys.
Speaker 1: That evening, another sibling called the hospital and spoke with
Speaker 1: Michael directly. He was in pain, but he was coherent.
Speaker 1: He described the boss, four white boys, the one in
Speaker 1: the black leather jacket. The family told the police. In hospital,
Speaker 1: Michael repeated the same account to nurses. He told at
Speaker 1: least six people he had been set on fire by others.
Speaker 1: A policewoman he spoke to at the scene didn't pass
Speaker 1: that information to anybody for a fortnight. At no point
Speaker 1: did Detective Inspector Williams or any other officer take a
Speaker 1: formal statement from Michael Manson, despite the fact that he
Speaker 1: was alive and speaking and asking to be heard. The
Speaker 1: family begged police to take a statement from him. They refused.
Speaker 1: The police didn't coordinate off the area where Michael had
Speaker 1: been attacked. There were no forensic clothes to recover because
Speaker 1: no one had thought to preserve them. On the morning
Speaker 1: of the third of February, Michael seemed cheerful and relatively well,
Speaker 1: but later that day he developed sept to see me you,
Speaker 1: He suffered a heart attack, and then he fell into
Speaker 1: a coma. Ten days later, Michael was dead.
Speaker 2: Hi, this is Mike Ferguson and I'm Mike Morpher and
Speaker 2: we're the host of the true crime podcast Criminology. Launched
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen. We've covered a variety of cases, both
Speaker 2: solved and unsolved, from missing persons to mysterious murders.
Speaker 3: Some of the cases we cover are well known and
Speaker 3: historic ones that you may be aware of well. Other
Speaker 3: ones may be intriguing ones from small towns that you've
Speaker 3: never heard of. A lot of the cases we explore
Speaker 3: currently breaking in the news.
Speaker 2: We have about four hundred episodes for you to binge
Speaker 2: on right now, including full seasons on The Zodiac Killer,
Speaker 2: The Golden State Killer, and Ted Bunt.
Speaker 3: You can find Criminology on every major podcast platform, and
Speaker 3: new episodes drop every Saturday night. Subscribe today so you
Speaker 3: don't miss an episode.
Speaker 1: The Manson family were repeatedly told that Michael had set
Speaker 1: fire to himself. They didn't accept it. Initially, police told
Speaker 1: them that they had so many leads they didn't need
Speaker 1: to do any public appeals. The family's grief was combined
Speaker 1: by the police's apparent unwillingness to haunt Michael's killers. As
Speaker 1: one of his sisters put it, the things they failed
Speaker 1: to do were so wilful and so blatant that it
Speaker 1: just has to be wilfully deciding not to take appropriate action.
Speaker 1: Letters between police and solicitors made it clear that officers
Speaker 1: still perceived the incident as self inflicted and felt that
Speaker 1: no crime had occurred. This was despite the fact that
Speaker 1: their own fire expert described the evidence as suspicious. A
Speaker 1: forensic scientist who specialized in fire investigations, James Monday, had
Speaker 1: told police at an early stage that they should be
Speaker 1: treating the circumstances as suspicious. The family submitted a formal
Speaker 1: complaint to the Police Complaints authority. They pushed, they organized,
Speaker 1: They refused to be moved. As sister Alex remarked in
Speaker 1: the media, Michael was a gentle, placid and caring person.
Speaker 1: He died in the most painful and ghastly way. In March,
Speaker 1: police finally announced that they were training Michael's death as
Speaker 1: a murder. They claimed they had begun an investigation in
Speaker 1: twelve hours after Michael was found on fire. They eventually
Speaker 1: had cordoned off the singe, but yet they still believed
Speaker 1: that it was self inflicted. Nevertheless, they appealed to the
Speaker 1: public for any information. Scotland Yard said it has now
Speaker 1: become clear that mister Manson was already on fire several
Speaker 1: minutes when he was found, they admitted that they never
Speaker 1: interviewed Michael before he died. This posed a significant problem.
Speaker 1: Unlike formal police statements, statements to family wouldn't have as
Speaker 1: much weight in a courtroom. Michael's family, meanwhile, were searching
Speaker 1: for their own clues. They launched a local leaflet campaign.
Speaker 1: Alex said, we know it was late, but surely someone
Speaker 1: must have seen or heard something, maybe a passing motorist.
Speaker 1: We're still pleading with anyone who can help us to
Speaker 1: do so. The family's leaflet campaign drew some attention, but
Speaker 1: the silence that surrounded Michael's death was beginning to fail,
Speaker 1: less like an absence of witnesses and more like an
Speaker 1: absence of will. It was impossible by the spring of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven to look at the Menson case and
Speaker 1: not see the shadow of another case that was falling
Speaker 1: across it. Four years earlier, eighteen year old Stephen Lawrence
Speaker 1: had been stabbed to death at a bus stop in Eltham,
Speaker 1: Southeast London by a gang of white youths. The investigation
Speaker 1: that followed had been mored by a series of failures,
Speaker 1: and for years his family had campaigned against a wall
Speaker 1: of official indifference racist attacks against young black men had
Speaker 1: been increasing in London throughout the early nineties, and anger
Speaker 1: towards the Metropolitan Police had been building steadily. The parallels
Speaker 1: between the two cases weren't abstract, they were structural. A
Speaker 1: young black man had been killed in a racist attack,
Speaker 1: the police had failed to act with urgency or competence.
Speaker 1: The family had been left to push for answers themselves.
Speaker 1: Every mistake and assumption made by the Metropolitan Police in
Speaker 1: the Lawrence case had been repeated in the Men's inn case.
Speaker 1: Same institution, same failures, different victim, different family left to
Speaker 1: carry the weight of it. The Mensons later said that
Speaker 1: officers refused to give them basic information about what had
Speaker 1: happened to Michael, or any news of how the investigation
Speaker 1: was processing. As in the Laurence case. They dismissed the
Speaker 1: police's family lays on as little more than tea and sympathy.
Speaker 1: One of Michael's sisters described the experience plainly, it felt
Speaker 1: like police were saying you don't matter, and Michael doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: That's what drove us on. The Menson family pushed on regardless.
Speaker 1: They kept the case visible in any way that they could,
Speaker 1: and through the spring and summer of nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: they waited for something to break. Nothing did. Then, in
Speaker 1: October of nineteen ninety seven, another young man died in
Speaker 1: London following a racist attack Lackville. Their real known as Ricky,
Speaker 1: was twenty years old and a student at Brunel University.
Speaker 1: He had been with friends in Kingston upon Thames Town
Speaker 1: Center when they were racially abused. His friends were able
Speaker 1: to regroup, but Ricky never did. Seven days later, his
Speaker 1: body was recovered from the River Thames. The Metropolitan Police
Speaker 1: deemed the racist attack unrelated to his death and initially
Speaker 1: closed the case as an accidental death. Three racist attacks,
Speaker 1: three young men, three investigations undermined from the start by
Speaker 1: the same assumptions, the same dismissals, the same institution. Anger
Speaker 1: towards the Metropolitan Police was becoming palpable across London. The
Speaker 1: Lawrence case had exposed the rot. The Menson Unrail cases
Speaker 1: were making clear that nothing had changed. By the end
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety seven, the Manson family were no closer
Speaker 1: to answers than they had been the mourning that Michael
Speaker 1: was attacked. The investigation remained, in all practical terms, a suicide,
Speaker 1: inquiry wearing the clothing of a murder one, the police
Speaker 1: had continued to do very little. In August of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight, Scotland Yard announced they were going to re
Speaker 1: examine unsolved murder cases and unexplained deaths with a possible
Speaker 1: racist motive. This decision had been made in the wake
Speaker 1: of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, which found that the Metropolitan
Speaker 1: Police's initial investigation into his murder was marred by professional incompetence,
Speaker 1: institutional racism and a failure of leadership. One of the
Speaker 1: cases they were going to be investigating was Michael Manson's murder.
Speaker 1: They set up a one million pound task force. Local
Speaker 1: communities were briefed on confidential aspects of the murder cases.
Speaker 1: An advisory group was created to advise on race matters.
Speaker 1: Assistant Commissioner Dennis O'Connor, who was in charge, announced the
Speaker 1: Lorren's inquiry has raised the question of weather racism played
Speaker 1: a part and that is sufficient for us to think
Speaker 1: we have to operate differently in the future. The following month,
Speaker 1: it was announced that four senior Scotland Yard officers were
Speaker 1: under investigation. The four officers under investigation were those who
Speaker 1: had handled the initial response to Michael's attack in the
Speaker 1: early hours of the twenty seventh of January nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1: They were the officers who had stood at the roadside,
Speaker 1: looked at a burning human being, and then decided he
Speaker 1: had done it to himself. Their decisions in those first
Speaker 1: hours had shaped everything that followed. The loss of the
Speaker 1: crime scene, the absence of forensic evidence, the failure to
Speaker 1: take a statement from a conscious, speaking yet dying man.
Speaker 1: The police had been working against the family from the
Speaker 1: very beginning. The inquest opened at Hornsey Coroner's Court on
Speaker 1: the seventh of September nineteen ninety eight. The questions before
Speaker 1: the jury were stark. Had Michael Manson been failed by
Speaker 1: the police because of racist assumptions made from the moment
Speaker 1: of first contact. Had the officers approached him the same
Speaker 1: way officers had approached to Stephen Lawn's case. What if
Speaker 1: Michael Manson had been white? Would he have been treated differently?
Speaker 1: Throughout the proceedings, the police pushed to convince the jury
Speaker 1: that Michael had set fire to himself, even as every
Speaker 1: piece of evidence that emerged pointed in the other direction.
Speaker 1: Detective Chief Inspector Robert Scott said that there was an
Speaker 1: even circumstantial evidence to support that Michael had been attacked.
Speaker 1: He said, not one witness of any substance has been found.
Speaker 1: We have found no evidence to consider a prosecution of
Speaker 1: any kind. They went so far as to challenge their
Speaker 1: own witness. One of those witnesses was James Monday, a
Speaker 1: forensic scientist specializing in foreign explosion investigations. Monday testified that
Speaker 1: the nature of the burns found on Michael, the way
Speaker 1: the flames had spread was consistent with his jacket having
Speaker 1: been ignited by a naked flame while he was lying
Speaker 1: face down. He told the Inquest that while he couldn't
Speaker 1: entirely eliminate the possibility that Michael had lit the back
Speaker 1: of his own clothing, to do so while lying down
Speaker 1: would have been unique in his professional experience, the scenario
Speaker 1: that police had maintained for over a year, the one
Speaker 1: they had told the family, the coroner and the press,
Speaker 1: was quite possibly physically implausible. Monday also told the Inquest
Speaker 1: that at the very early stage of his investigation, he
Speaker 1: had informed the police that, in his view, the circumstances
Speaker 1: should be treated as suspicious. The police had been told it,
Speaker 1: yet they did nothing with it. A week before the
Speaker 1: inquest opened, Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Townsend had written to
Speaker 1: the family staring, despite a very thorough investigation, we are
Speaker 1: still uncertain about how Michael came to be found on far.
Speaker 1: The letter arrived while the family was preparing to finally
Speaker 1: have a jury hear the truth. During the inquest, consultant
Speaker 1: psychiatrist doctor Rajiev Sharma said that he had diagnosed Michael
Speaker 1: as schizophrenic, but said he wouldn't have said he was
Speaker 1: a major suicide risk. He said that Michael had spoken
Speaker 1: about suicide in the past and said that ghosts had
Speaker 1: suggested he'd take his own life, but he was adamant
Speaker 1: he would never hurt himself. He had said, I haven't
Speaker 1: got it in me. I couldn't do it. I want
Speaker 1: to live. On the sixteenth of September nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: after just over a week of evidence, the jury at
Speaker 1: Hornsey Coroner's Court returned a unanimous verdict of unlawful killing.
Speaker 1: Michael's family wept and hugged one another. They immediately demanded
Speaker 1: to know why police had waited so long before deciding
Speaker 1: to investigate. Guessie said, how is it that a black
Speaker 1: Man tells a number of police when he is found
Speaker 1: on fire that he has been attacked, and it takes
Speaker 1: twelve hours before an initial investigation is attempted. Despite the findings,
Speaker 1: the coroner, doctor William Doeman, said the police shouldn't be
Speaker 1: blamed for failing to find Michael's killers. The reactions from
Speaker 1: sections of the police was immediate and reveiling.
Speaker 4: D C. I.
Speaker 1: Scott, who had led the original investigation, gave an interview
Speaker 1: to Channel four News on the day of the verdict
Speaker 1: and said that despite everything, he still believed that Michael
Speaker 1: had killed himself. A representative from the Police Federation, Mike Bennett,
Speaker 1: who hadn't attended the inquest and hadn't heard any of
Speaker 1: the evidence, criticized the verdict. He alleged that the family
Speaker 1: had crowded out the proceedings and intimidated the coroner, and
Speaker 1: said that the whole thing stinks. The family solicitor Mike Schwartz,
Speaker 1: was also interviewed. He pointed out that Mike Bennett had
Speaker 1: been proven wrong and that he hadn't even been present
Speaker 1: for the evidence. Bennett then criticized Schwartz and insulted the family.
Speaker 1: As for the four Scotland Yard officers under investigation. They
Speaker 1: were given words of advice. In the hours after the verdict,
Speaker 1: the Metropolitan Police issued a statement admitting that serious mistakes
Speaker 1: had been made, but confined their admission to the first
Speaker 1: twelve hours of the investigation. Michael's sister later reflected on
Speaker 1: that phase sixteen months of a man lying dead, no arrests,
Speaker 1: no crime scene, no statement ever taken, and the institution
Speaker 1: responsible had chosen to draw a line at twelve hours.
Speaker 1: It was as though everything that had followed those twelve
Speaker 1: ours had been acceptable. It wasn't. That verdict forced the
Speaker 1: Metropolitan Police's hand. They could no longer maintain publicly or
Speaker 1: legally that Michael had set fire to himself. Now the
Speaker 1: institution that had spent almost two years obstructing the truth
Speaker 1: was required to find it. The family solicitor wrote to
Speaker 1: Home Secretary Jack Straw and a meeting followed. Operation Chichester
Speaker 1: was created and the case was handed to the Racial
Speaker 1: and Violent Crimes Task Force at Scotland Yard for reinvestigation. Understandably,
Speaker 1: the family didn't want the Metropolitan Police handling the case.
Speaker 1: The existing inquiry was halted while the new investigation got underway.
Speaker 1: At an initial meeting between the family and senior officers.
Speaker 1: Deputy Commissioner John Stevens issued a formal apology on behalf
Speaker 1: of the Metropolitan Police. It was the first apology the
Speaker 1: family had received in almost two years. The new investigation
Speaker 1: was led by Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Greeve, the head
Speaker 1: of the Racial and Violent Crimes Task Force. For the
Speaker 1: first time, police openly stated that Michael's death was being
Speaker 1: investigated as a racially motivated attack and that a number
Speaker 1: of suspects had been identified. That shift in language was significant.
Speaker 1: It was an acknowledgment that had been withheld from the
Speaker 1: family since the night Michael was found. Gravesteam began by
Speaker 1: going back through the two hundred statements that had been
Speaker 1: collected during the initial investigation. What they found was damming.
Speaker 1: The statements had never been properly assessed and hadn't been
Speaker 1: entered into the Homes Police database correctly. Because of the
Speaker 1: original suicide assumption, no one had treated them as material
Speaker 1: to a murder inquiry. Now, working through them properly for
Speaker 1: the first time, a pattern began to emerge. One witness
Speaker 1: said she saw Michael attacked in Kendall Parade and then
Speaker 1: chased to nearby Silver Street. The investigation had focused on
Speaker 1: Kendall Parade, where Michael was found. Detectives learned about a
Speaker 1: group of three individuals who lived close to where Michael
Speaker 1: had been attacked, and one name kept appearing given by
Speaker 1: different witnesses at different times, independently of one another, twenty
Speaker 1: six year old Harry Constantinou. In January of nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: Michael's family were invited to appear on BBC one's Crime Watch, but.
Speaker 4: At his inquest, the coroner recorded unlawful killing and the
Speaker 4: case was passed to the Met's new Racial and Violent
Speaker 4: Crime Unit. Michael's brother and sister are here along with
Speaker 4: the Deputy Assistant Commissioner, John greeb Crazy. I know that
Speaker 4: you were with your brother in hospital two weeks after
Speaker 4: the incident. He died two weeks later. You managed to
Speaker 4: get a bit of information from him. What did he
Speaker 4: tell you?
Speaker 5: Michael was able to tell us that he had been
Speaker 5: on a bus and taken the underground in Edmonton at night,
Speaker 5: and he may have been followed by three or four
Speaker 5: white youths and that he was attacked by the issues
Speaker 5: near some phone booses by sweet By Sweetbriar Walk.
Speaker 6: Did he explain how he was attacked? What happened?
Speaker 5: He said that Michael was a very very quiet and
Speaker 5: peaceful and family centered man. And he said he didn't
Speaker 5: approach them, He didn't say anything to them. They had
Speaker 5: attacked him totally unprovoked.
Speaker 6: What else did he tell you?
Speaker 5: He asked me, why did they do this to it?
Speaker 6: So you say he was a very quiet man? Was
Speaker 6: he aloneer.
Speaker 5: Who was just quiet? And he was happy to be
Speaker 5: him with his family and his friends.
Speaker 6: So it was an unprovoked attack.
Speaker 5: It was totally unprovoked.
Speaker 1: Michael's siblings sat alongside Grave and made a direct appeal
Speaker 1: to the public for information. Witnesses started to come forward.
Speaker 1: Lyndon Naken said that twenty five year old Mario Perira
Speaker 1: had told him that he was in a car with
Speaker 1: Constantinou and twenty four year old Osgae Sivat when they
Speaker 1: poured flammable liquid over Michael. Another witness, balj At Sok,
Speaker 1: said that Perira had told him the attack was meant
Speaker 1: to be a joke. In March of nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: the family and campaigners leaflited the area where the suspects
Speaker 1: were known to live, appealing for further witnesses to come forward.
Speaker 1: It was a kind of grass to persistence the family
Speaker 1: had maintained since the very beginning. Detectives put Constantinou under surveillance.
Speaker 1: They watched him, they followed him, and then, having built
Speaker 1: en off of a picture of his movements and associates,
Speaker 1: they applied for authorization to go further. A listening device
Speaker 1: was planted inside Constantinou's flat. What followed over the weeks
Speaker 1: that the bog was active was a window into the
Speaker 1: private world of men who had believed for over two
Speaker 1: years that they had gotten away with it. They spoke freely.
Speaker 1: They had no reason not to. The police had told
Speaker 1: them as much, not in words, but in everything they
Speaker 1: had failed to do since January nineteen ninety seven. The
Speaker 1: recordings captured Constantinu and Perira discussing the murder. They referred
Speaker 1: to Michael as the burned geezer. Perira voiced concern about
Speaker 1: whether forensics evidence could link him to the crime. He
Speaker 1: appeared nervous as he said, they can find out whether
Speaker 1: I touched him from my clothing, If my clothing touched
Speaker 1: against him, Constantino reassured him they can't prove nothing. And
Speaker 1: when the subject of what they had done to Michael
Speaker 1: came up, Pereira's response was recorded clearly so what he
Speaker 1: was black. It was the same logic that had animated
Speaker 1: the attack, the same logic that had for two years
Speaker 1: animated the investigation. In another conversation, Constantino reflected on what
Speaker 1: had happened. He said, I told them not to do it.
Speaker 1: He was walking along, he had his head down, he
Speaker 1: was dragging his feet. They approached him. I got out
Speaker 1: of the car and I goes to them, leave him alone,
Speaker 1: Leave the gazer alone. Mario kept going on about he's
Speaker 1: a black, let's burn him and all that. What could
Speaker 1: I do? What the recordings also confirmed, and what operation
Speaker 1: Chichester's review of the original statements had already begun to suggest,
Speaker 1: was the sequence of events on the night of the
Speaker 1: twenty seventh of January nineteen ninety seven. Conflicting accounts exist
Speaker 1: as to whether the group were on the same boss
Speaker 1: as Michael or arrived separately. Michael believed they were on
Speaker 1: the bus. However, they came across him. What followed was
Speaker 1: deliberate and premeditated. Pereira, Savad and Constantin who came across
Speaker 1: Michael alone that night. They hurled racist abuse at him
Speaker 1: before assaulting him and stealing his bag and walkman. Perreira
Speaker 1: and Savad then made an initial attempt to set Michael
Speaker 1: on fire, but they failed. The three men then went
Speaker 1: back to Perreira's home nearby and picked up some white
Speaker 1: spirit They then returned to the area to look for Michael.
Speaker 1: When they found him, Career poured an acceleran over Michael's
Speaker 1: blue an Iraq Savat lit it. Michael was on fire.
Speaker 1: He staggered to a telephone box on Sterling Way and
Speaker 1: tried to press himself against the perspects doors to smother
Speaker 1: the flames. The fire was so intense that it partially
Speaker 1: melted the perspects. He couldn't put the flames out, so
Speaker 1: he ran. He left a trail of burnt flesh and
Speaker 1: clothing behind him on the pavement as he went running
Speaker 1: down Silver Street, pulling at his clothes trying to get
Speaker 1: them off his body. That was where the off duty
Speaker 1: firefighter found him on a grass verge, still burning, still
Speaker 1: fighting for his life. The three men who had done
Speaker 1: it walked away, One of them, Osgae Savat, left the
Speaker 1: country within days of the attack, he fled to North Cyprus,
Speaker 1: where he had family, apparently confident that the distance would
Speaker 1: be any The United Kingdom had no extradition agreement with
Speaker 1: the Turkish shiprate authorities, him would depend entirely on cooperation,
Speaker 1: on goodwill, on the willingness of another jurisdiction to act,
Speaker 1: where the Metropolitan Police had not. Back in North London,
Speaker 1: the recordings from Constantinu's flat had given Graves to him
Speaker 1: what they needed. On the ninth of March nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: Harry Constantinou and Mario Pereira were arrested and taken to
Speaker 1: Edmonton Police station. Constantinu, when he was interviewed, admitted to
Speaker 1: having taken part in the attack on Michael, but denied murder. Parira,
Speaker 1: even when the recordings were played to him, directly denied
Speaker 1: any involvement at all. Another man, fifty year old who's
Speaker 1: saying Abdullah, was also a He hadn't been present during
Speaker 1: the attack itself, but was charged with perverting the course
Speaker 1: of justice for his role in obstructing the inquiry in
Speaker 1: the years that followed. He knew about the murder, he
Speaker 1: had been recorded speaking about it in the flat, yet
Speaker 1: he didn't go to police. Constantino and Praira were charged
Speaker 1: with murder. Three men were behind bars, but detectives weren't
Speaker 1: finished with the fourth. In Cyprus, detectives moved to bring
Speaker 1: Savat to justice through a different route. Entirely senior British
Speaker 1: officers delivered copies of all their paperwork to the Cypriate authorities.
Speaker 1: Thirteen witnesses traveled to Cyprus for the preliminary hearing and
Speaker 1: gave evidence at the actual trial. It also emerged that
Speaker 1: by the time UK detectives contacted the Cypriate police, Savat
Speaker 1: was already on their radar. He had not, it turned out,
Speaker 1: been invisible. He'd simply been somewhere no one had thought
Speaker 1: to look, or no one bothered to look. He was
Speaker 1: charged with murder on the eleventh of August, and in
Speaker 1: November of nineteen ninety nine, Ozgae Savat was found guilty
Speaker 1: in a Cypriot court and sentenced to fourteen years imprisonment
Speaker 1: for manslaughter. Details of that trial are not publicly available.
Speaker 1: By the time Savat was convicted, a preliminary hearing had
Speaker 1: already determined there was enough evidence against Pereira and Constantino
Speaker 1: for them to stand trial for Michael's murder. There was
Speaker 1: also enough evidence for Abdullah to stand trial for perverting
Speaker 1: the course of justice. All three men pleaded not guilty.
Speaker 1: The trial began on the sixteenth of November nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: nine in the Old Bailey. Prosecutor Nigel Sweeney told the
Speaker 1: court that Pereira had told detectives that they attacked Michael
Speaker 1: because he looked like a man who had spoken to
Speaker 1: Perira's girlfriend. Savat had told detectives that Pereira had been
Speaker 1: railing against black people after he was too scared to
Speaker 1: aid intervene when a black man flirted with his girlfriend.
Speaker 1: He described how the police officers arrived at the scene
Speaker 1: and found Michael. He said, at first he appeared to
Speaker 1: be in a trance like state, and it was thought
Speaker 1: by some, in particular the two police officers who came
Speaker 1: to the scene, that he had set fire to himself.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor detailed the events of that night, the men
Speaker 1: setting Michael onphire and stealing his belongings. He then spoke
Speaker 1: about the recordings from inside the flat, describing how Perier
Speaker 1: had talked about murder in a light hearted way, how
Speaker 1: he said so what he was black. The prosecutor told
Speaker 1: the courtroom that Constantinou claimed he had been in the
Speaker 1: car while Perira and Savat set Michael onmphire. He said
Speaker 1: they disappeared around the corner and then returned laughing. Prosecutor
Speaker 1: Swainey said, we say you can reject this claim that
Speaker 1: he wasn't party to the killing. He was with them
Speaker 1: before he took the personal stereo. According to the defense
Speaker 1: team during their opening statements, detectives were under so much
Speaker 1: pressure from the Stephen Lawrence case that they could have
Speaker 1: produced inaccurate and unreliable evidence to accuse innocent men of murder.
Speaker 1: Defense attorney Peter Thornton said that Perier wasn't in the
Speaker 1: area and took no part in the attack. He even
Speaker 1: said that Michael was a classic candidate for suicide because
Speaker 1: he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. He claimed that
Speaker 1: the quality of the recordings where the men spoke about
Speaker 1: the murder was per with background noise. The testimony got
Speaker 1: underway with various witnesses testifying about what Michael told them
Speaker 1: in the hospital. His friend as Egiel, testified about the
Speaker 1: moment he stepped off the bus that night. He said
Speaker 1: he started to head towards some phone boxes because there
Speaker 1: was some light there, and the next thing he knew
Speaker 1: he was on fire. As Egiel asked if he knew
Speaker 1: who had set him on fire, Michael said he didn't,
Speaker 1: but he thought that there were four white men. Michael's
Speaker 1: brother Quasi, said he had asked him, why did they
Speaker 1: do this to me? There was a man named Lyndon
Speaker 1: who testified that Pereier had told him about the murder
Speaker 1: and warned him not to go to police. Initially, he
Speaker 1: had remained quiet, telling the court, I suppose I felt
Speaker 1: a sense of loyalty to my friends and I was scared.
Speaker 1: He said that Pereira told them he was the one
Speaker 1: who threw the flammable liquid on Michael while stavat through
Speaker 1: the match. Mario Pereira would testify on his own behalf.
Speaker 1: He told the court he was probably in bed that night.
Speaker 1: He denied, saying so what he was black. He testified,
Speaker 1: I would never say nothing like that. Harry Constantinou and
Speaker 1: Hussein Abdullah refused to take the stand. The jury were
Speaker 1: then sent off to deliberate. Ten hours later, they returned
Speaker 1: with a verdict. They found Mario Praier a guilty of
Speaker 1: murder and Harry Constantinou guilty of manslaughter. They were both
Speaker 1: found guilty of perversing the course of justice, along with
Speaker 1: Hussain Abdullah. As the verdict was announced, the courtroom erupted
Speaker 1: into cheers. On the twenty one of December nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: the sentences were handed on. Mario Praier received a life
Speaker 1: sentence for murder and perverting the course of justice. Harry
Speaker 1: Constantinu received twelve years from manslaughter and perverting the course
Speaker 1: of justice. The judge noted that Constantinu had mental health
Speaker 1: difficulties of his own, but said he felt that he
Speaker 1: had shown genuine remorse. He told him he was required
Speaker 1: to serve a minimum of six years. Whosayn Abdullah was
Speaker 1: sentenced to twenty one months for perverting the course of justice.
Speaker 1: Ozgae Savatt was already serving his fourteen year sentence in Cyprus.
Speaker 1: Mister Justice Gage spoke about Michael's family and said, there
Speaker 1: has been much written about the determination and tenacity of
Speaker 1: Michael Manson's family to see those responsible for his death
Speaker 1: are brought to justice. I would like to add my
Speaker 1: admiration for their efforts. I've been impressed by the dignified
Speaker 1: way they have conducted themselves throughout this trial. Outside the
Speaker 1: Old Bailey, Michael's family held a moment's silence. His sister
Speaker 1: Essie then said, we felt that by not investigating the murder,
Speaker 1: the police were almost sending a message to these people
Speaker 1: that it's fine you go and burn a black man
Speaker 1: in the street and nothing's going to be done about it.
Speaker 1: But the day hadn't been straightforward, even in its moment
Speaker 1: of resolution. Something had emerged during the trial proceedings that
Speaker 1: the family hadn't been prepared for, something that would take
Speaker 1: years to fully reckon with. It was during the trial
Speaker 1: at the Old Bailey that Michael's brother first became aware
Speaker 1: that the family had been subjected to convert surveillance. It
Speaker 1: had come up in the proceedings almost in passing a
Speaker 1: reference that landed quietly and then didn't leave. A Special
Speaker 1: Branch note on left wing activity in relation to the
Speaker 1: Stephen Lawrence Inquiry was later shown to the Undercover Policing Inquiry.
Speaker 1: It mentioned Michael Manson's case alongside a handwritten note stating
Speaker 1: that John Grave would be briefed on intelligence from the
Speaker 1: Special Demonstration Squad. The report was from late nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: the period when Graves team had been investigating the case.
Speaker 1: As it turned out, Michael's family had been watched while
Speaker 1: they grieved, They had been watched while they organized pained,
Speaker 1: unaware that undercover officers were covertly monitoring the family and
Speaker 1: their push for justice for Michael. The questions this raise
Speaker 1: didn't have any easy answers, and in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: with the convictions just secured in three years of campaign
Speaker 1: finally brought to an end, there was no mechanism to
Speaker 1: pursue them. That reckoning would have to wait. What also
Speaker 1: had to wait indefinitely, it turned out, was any form
Speaker 1: of accountability for the officers whose failures had made all
Speaker 1: of it necessary. No officer was ever formally disciplined for
Speaker 1: their handling of Michael Manson's murder. All but one of
Speaker 1: the senior investigators had either retired or were in the
Speaker 1: process of retiring by the time the inquest had concluded.
Speaker 1: The Police Complaints Authority inquiry had been running since September
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety eight. It had found evidence of overt
Speaker 1: racism in the handling of the case. It had recorded
Speaker 1: an officer referring to Michael as a fucking black schizophrenic.
Speaker 1: It had documented the internal reports in which police had
Speaker 1: accused the family of bad faith, of seeking financial gain,
Speaker 1: of manipulating the media, and at the end of it all,
Speaker 1: no one was called to account. The Guardian's timeline of
Speaker 1: the case, which was published the day after the convictions,
Speaker 1: ran from January nineteen ninety seven to December nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: almost three years, condensed into a column of dates and events.
Speaker 1: A gentry was a thing the family had to fight for,
Speaker 1: the murder inquiry being opened, the home secretary being contacted,
Speaker 1: the police apology, the racial motivation being formally acknowledged. None
Speaker 1: of this had happened without pressure. All of it had
Speaker 1: required the Mansons to push a door that never should
Speaker 1: have been closed. The family had also taken their case
Speaker 1: to the European Court of Human Rights, lodging an application
Speaker 1: in February of nineteen ninety nine in the midst of
Speaker 1: everything else they were carrying. In its two thousand and
Speaker 1: three ruling, the Court found the application was manifestly ill founded,
Speaker 1: noting that although the initial investigation had been gravely deficient,
Speaker 1: the state had ultimately fulfilled its obligations under Article two.
Speaker 1: Once the third investigation had been launched and convictions secured.
Speaker 1: The ruling acknowledged the failures clearly. It stated that where
Speaker 1: a racist attack is involved, it's particularly important that the
Speaker 1: investigation is pursued with vigor and impartiality, having regard to
Speaker 1: the need to races, cert society's condemnation of racism, and
Speaker 1: to maintain the confidence of minorities in the ability of
Speaker 1: the authorities to protect them from threats of racist violence.
Speaker 1: It was a statement of principle, a rise far too
Speaker 1: late to have protected Michael Manson, but one that would
Speaker 1: carry weight in the cases that came after. The family
Speaker 1: surveillance question remained open for another quarter of a century.
Speaker 1: In late twenty twenty five, the Undercover Policing Inquiry heard
Speaker 1: evidence from the Menson family as part of its examination
Speaker 1: of the campaigns that had been spied upon, alongside the
Speaker 1: families of Steven Lawrence and Ricky Rail. Michael's sister described
Speaker 1: coming close to giving up during the years of the campaign.
Speaker 1: She became very emotional giving her account, and the inquiry
Speaker 1: hearing took an unscheduled break. Her brother described what it
Speaker 1: had meant to learn twenty six years on that at
Speaker 1: the very moment the family believed they were finally being
Speaker 1: taken seriously, the police had simultaneously been briefing from intelligence
Speaker 1: gathered by undercover officers that were watching them. The question
Speaker 1: put to him at the inquiry was a plain one.
Speaker 1: How did it feel? He was asked, how does it
Speaker 1: make you feel at the point where you thought you
Speaker 1: were finally being taken seriously, that it was seemingly the
Speaker 1: case that they were at the same time spying, or
Speaker 1: at the very least had knowledge of spying by undercover
Speaker 1: officers on your family. He replied, that sense of disbelief
Speaker 1: to sweep in and say, you know, we know it
Speaker 1: was murder, we know it was who it was, but
Speaker 1: to conceal this was an accidental omission, This was you know,
Speaker 1: I've used the word manipulation so many times, but I
Speaker 1: can't understand how this is anything other than intentional. What
Speaker 1: if the trial hadn't led to convictions, what of this
Speaker 1: stuff had got in the way of finding justice? They
Speaker 1: risked so much. I can't understand how people have of
Speaker 1: this seniority think that that's okay. Michael Manton had been
Speaker 1: a musician, a son, a brother, a man who had
Speaker 1: once stood on on a BBC stage and filled the
Speaker 1: room with sound, and who had spent his last years
Speaker 1: fighting an illness that hadn't beaten him. He had been
Speaker 1: set on fire on a cold January night by men
Speaker 1: who thought nothing would come of it. In the end,
Speaker 1: they had been wrong, but it had taken everything the
Speaker 1: people who loved Michael had left to prove it.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: That is it for today's episode of Morbidology. As always,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening, and I'd like to
Speaker 1: say a massive thank you to my new supporter up
Speaker 1: on Patreon, Elizabeth. Over on Patreon, I upload Adfrey, early
Speaker 1: release and bonus episodes of Morbidology. I also said thou
Speaker 1: patroon exclusive merch along with a thank you card, and
Speaker 1: you can also get bonus episodes, ad free and early
Speaker 1: release episodes over on Apple subscriptions. Remember to check us
Speaker 1: out at morbidology dot com for more information about this
Speaker 1: episode and to read some true crime articles. Until next time,
Speaker 1: take care of yourselves, stay safe, and have an amazing week.