For many of us at this annual event, there was this year an added sadness and grief in the absence of a dedicated campaigner on this issue, Pauline Campbell, who devoted herself to the cause after her daughter died because of the neglect of the authorities in Styal prison in 2003.
 http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2003/10/oct25-06.htm

Many of us heard Pauline speak at previous annual marches organised by the United Families and Friends of those who have died in custody and had come to know and respect Pauline through her single-minded campaigning.
 http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2008/01/jan.htm#holloway

News of her suicide at her daughter's grave this May came as a shock (but not a surprise) and it was appropriate that she was remembered at the start of the march in Trafalgar Square.
 http://re-photo.co.uk/?p=361

Pauline was one of many whose name was not listed among the over 2500 people who have died in care of police and prison staff, either through violence or neglect, but her and many other deaths are also very much a result of their actions.

Despite the publicity achieved by this campaign, and various investigations by the media, inquest verdicts and other enquiries that have made the damning evidence crystal clear, nothing seems to have changed. Racism, the lack of a proper culture of care and an almost complete lack of accountability mean that healthy people, mainly but not all black, continue to die in police and psychiatric custody and in prisons and there is no justice for them. In the past year there were 182 such deaths recorded, and the banner carried in the march listed over 2500 who have died.

The march made its way in silence down Whitehall to Downing Street where, after the bouquets had been subjected to a police examination, family members were allowed to come forward and fix them to the gates in front of Downing St, where police had agreed they would be allowed to stay until the end of the protest.

Among those taking part were the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, The inquest on his death continues.
 http://inquest.justice4jean.org/

Outside Downing St the marchers were encouraged to give vent to their feelings and make a great noise, before continuing to march, now chanting, to Parliament Square where there was a rally at which a number of people whose family members had been killed made pleas for justice to be done.

More pictures on My London Diary shortly
 http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2008/10/oct.htm#united