I Can’t Breathe: Race, death & British policing (from INQUEST)
In ‘I can’t breathe’: Race, death and British Policing, INQUEST investigated the processes, procedures and evidence base of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) and the coronial system to examine how accountability for racism is delivered.
INQUEST found a system which works against delivering accountability, that appeared blind to the evidence and where racial discrimination was not addressed meaningfully.
The detailed report makes the following issues clear for the first time:
- Official data never before made public shows that Black people are seven times more likely to die than White people following the use of restraint by police.
- No death of a Black person following police custody or contact has led to officers being disciplined for racism, at a conduct or criminal level.
- Despite the stark racial disproportionality evidenced in data, none of the accountability processes effectively or substantially consider the potential role of racism in deaths.
- Britain’s leading human rights lawyers told INQUEST that the role of racism is not adequately scrutinised by post-death investigation system.
The report features new data and analysis. It includes powerful interviews with expert human rights lawyers who are members of the INQUEST Lawyers Group, and five bereaved family members who have been through the legal processes.
The new Roger Sylvester Centre at Canning Crescent will honour the memory of the man it is named after, by making it easier for more in the borough to get the help they need.
The new National Mikey Powell Memorial Family Fund (NMPMFF) Therapy Care Initiative Pilot funded by the Lottery Community Fund, is now active, with the selection process resuming shortly.
After years of waiting for change, friends and family of people who ‘died in police custody’ are coming together to demand justice from the police writes James Whitfield.
In July 2025 the Independent Office for Police Misconduct (IOPC) released the full details of their custody deaths statistics for England and Wales 2024-2025.
The INQUEST Oral Histories Archive documents state violence, death and resistance in the UK since 1981 and explores over 40 years of fighting for justice through sound, image and print.
Since becoming the Children’s Commissioner, I have travelled across the country meeting children whose lives are shaped by decisions made far away from them, whose voices are rarely heard.
