> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Dying for Justice: black and minority ethnic deaths in custody
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dying-for-justice-black-and-minority-ethnic-deaths-in-custody/
- Published: 2015-03-28T00:03:09.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-18T14:06:21.000Z
- Description: 509 suspicious deaths of people from BME, migrant and asylum seeker communities in state custody over 23 years. Five prosecutions. Not one single conviction. A chilling report from the Institute of Race Relations.
- Author: Jenny Bourne
- Tags: Crime, justice & law, #Migrated, United Kingdom, G4S: Securing whose world?, shinealight, Prisons & child prisoners, Immigration detention and removal in the UK, Access to justice, #en, #Import 2026-04-09 16:53, #ImagesUploaded

![DfJ_graphic.jpg](https://www.opendemocracy.net/content/files/2026/04/DfJ_graphic_gsU5MMt-1776345515187.jpg)

DfJ\_graphic.jpg

Twenty-six years it has taken the families of the 96 killed at Hillsborough to force out [the confession](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/13/david-duckenfield-why-i-lied-about-hillsborough?ref=opendemocracy.net) from police chief inspector David Duckenfield that he had lied about procedures on that fateful day in 1989 and was in fact responsible for the crowd surge which ultimately killed so many.

On 23 March in the House of Lords, Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennett, holding back her tears, told a meeting how *she* was still having to fight twenty-two years after the death of her twin brother Leon Patterson in Manchester to find out how he died and make the authorities take responsibility.

---

_This post is for subscribers only._

Subscribe: https://www.opendemocracy.net/#/portal/signup