Sheku Bayoh’s family have accused Kate Forbes of ignoring demands for a public inquiry to examine why police were not prosecuted over the 31-year-old’s death.
Dad-of-two Sheku died after he was brutally restrained on the ground by six officers using pepper spray, batons and leg and arm restraints in Kirkcaldy in 2015.
The Sheku Bayoh Inquiry began two years ago and is investigating the circumstances leading to his death and the aftermath – but controversially not the Crown Office’s decision not to pursue criminal convictions against the police.
And Aamer Anwar, lawyer for the victim’s family, has been left furious that Deputy First Minister Forbes has failed to respond to cross party calls for a review of the inquiry’s terms of reference.
Anwar – who was placed under police surveillance while working on the case – has called the justice system “institutionally racist”.
And in a letter to Forbes he said blasted her failure to respond to correspondence sent on behalf of Sheku’s family in September calling for the inquiry to be expanded.
He told the Sunday Mail: “Kate Forbes clearly thinks she can just ignore the Bayoh family, the Chair of the Inquiry, public opinion, and her political opposition, but nine years on, and after a multi-million-pound public inquiry, why should the Crown Office be allowed to escape total scrutiny and accountability.
“Whilst in 2019 we believe the former Lord Advocate James Wolfe KC did everything in his power to hide his Crown Office’s devastating incompetence, arrogance and racism, in 2024 for this Government to continue with that veil of secrecy would be the final act of betrayal, not just for the Sheku Bayoh family, but every family fighting for justice in this country. “
In a devastating inditement of the justice system the lawyer, who has exposed some of Scotland’s most shocking miscarriages of justice, added: “For some 25 years I have fought for families such as those of Surjit Singh Chhokar, Sheku Bayoh, Katie Allan and Emma Caldwell, in each of those cases I have faced obstruction, lies, arrogance and a deliberate attempt to stereotype me.
“I have faced personal attacks, isolation, humiliation, been falsely accused of misconduct and subjected to unlawful surveillance.
“The campaigns waged against me both publicly and covertly has in turn resulted in abuse and death threats, so of course after nine years of fighting for the Sheku Bayoh family I am very conscious that had I been a white lawyer that none of this would have happened.
“The deafening silence from the vast majority of my profession that greeted my evidence is yet another example of the jealousy and institutional racism that drips throughout our so called system of justice.”
Anwar has told the Sheku Bayoh Inquiry that providing free legal advice and support to the family over almost a decade left him fearing his business would not survive.
In an emotional evidence session he said he had received death threats and had to move house, experienced paranoia, and had been put under “unlawful” police surveillance.
The 56-year-old said he was warned by Imran Khan KC, who represented the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, “not to respond” to racism in relation to his work.
Anwar told how he had advised Sheku’s family to trust the Crown Office and Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (Pirc).
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But he added: “All of them failed to deliver justice. The criminal justice system in this country is institutionally racist.”
Referring to the police surveillance he was placed under Anwar added: “If this was a white lawyer doing the job I was doing would that be acceptable, or would there be uproar?”
Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Tory leader Russell Findlay and Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton have all backed the move to expand the inquiry which could see ex-Lord Advocate James Wolffe KC recalled to give more evidence.
Wolffe told Sheku’s family in 2018 of his decision not to pursue charges against officers over the trainee gas engineer’s death.
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