hello, this is bbc news. the headlines: mexico now has the third—highest coronavirus death toll in the world. over 16,000 people have died there, meaning the country has overtaken britain. only the united states and brazil have seen more deaths. countries across europe are fighting a coronavirus resurgence. in england, thousands of beauty salons, bowling alleys and wedding venues have been told to stay closed for at least another fortnight. james murdoch, the younger son of media mogul rupert murdoch, has resigned from the board of news corporation — which owns fox news, the wall streetjournal, the times and the sun — citing disagreements over editorial content. president trump says he will ban

video—sharing app tiktok in the us. security officials there have expressed concern that the app, which is chinese—owned, could be used to collect the personal data of americans. now on bbc news, in the wake of the black lives matter movement, tara welsh investigates why black men are more likely to die in police custody than any other ethnic group in england. she meets the families who have lost loved ones and who say the criminaljustice system is racially biased. and a warning, there are some images in this programme which you may find disturbing. the death of george floyd under the knee of a white policeman has started a flood of protest around the world. outrage over an american tragedy. and tens of thousands of people

in the uk have marched in unison. but what now? is it time for us to face our own ugly truth? get off my neck! in the uk, black people are also struggling to breathe and dying under the knees of the police. people think it's happening in america, it's not happening here. ijust want people to know that it's happening here all the time. my face was on the floor of a cell. half of my shirt is covered with blood and my breathing was cutting off. i didn't think i was going to survive. why are black britons more likely to be the subject of police force, to die in police custody? some officers are treating people as if they are subhuman. they are performing their discriminative behaviour within the police service and they should be removed. met police was institutionally racist. in some ways, it's got worse than it was 20 odd years ago. can this movement really end the injustice that has scarred generations?

they chant: black lives matter! a night of protest in hackney, east london, after rashan charles, a 20—year—old black man, died following contact with the police. he loved football. he was a playful youngster. and then when he got older, he became a problem. and he needed additional guidance. i gave what i could. my father gave a lot of input into him. rashan was a proud father himself, of a daughter who wasn't even two years old when his life was ended. in the early hours of thejuly of 22nd 2017, rashan was running away from a police officer when he entered a grocery

store in hackney. cctv footage shows him placing something in his mouth before the officer catches up with him. seconds later, he's forcefully restrained and thrown to the floor. holding rashan by the throat, the officer tries to open his mouth. a member of the public assists by placing rashan in a body hold. rashan is held down for two minutes before he stops moving. he died later in hospital. i've watched the video so many times now that it's playing in my mind as i speak to you, i don't need to view it again. i've seen members of my family who are broken people because of what's happened. rashan‘s great—uncle rod is a former police chief inspector who still trains new met recruits on how to detain and

restrain suspects. i stand firmly with any officer who has to use lethal force, or the highest levels of force, when it's appropriate. they have my backing and they should have yours. but when you're talking about a scene that i watch where there isn't a clear and obvious threat to the officer, certainly no threat to bystanders, the levels of resistance from rashan — if i'm generous — the levels of resistance are negligible. they really are zero. yet you watch the use of force continue to climb and he died. and i say i know it was needless. rashan is one of over 160 people to have died after contact with the police during the last decade. the uk has a long legacy of black deaths in police custody. black people are twice as likely

to die where force has been used. black people make up 3% of the population but 8% of the people that die in custody. there can only be one reason that, either consciously or unconsciously, the system is biased. over the last year, the met‘s use of force has increased, with black people nearly four times more likely to have it used on them than their white counterparts. despite the global pandemic, thousands came to central london to march against deaths, black deaths, in police custody. you've really got to be here to appreciate the size of this and to feel the strength of feeling here, really. and people from all backgrounds have

turned out today, all ages. but there's one message, that there needs to be big changes. beautiful to see the united colours out here. and everybody‘s here in support of injustice and inequality, because that's what it boils down to at the end of the day. you know, any decent human being can and should acknowledge that what's been happening is not right and this happened on our own home soil. for amare, this public protest is also deeply personal. on august 31st 2010, his best friend admitted himself into bethlehem royal hospital for mental health treatment. but after being restrained by 11 police officers, he never regained consciousness. his brain had been starved of oxygen. it was awful, worst time in my life.

my best friend, was killed in 2010 at the hands of up to 11 police officers. and the details were horrific, it was it was disgusting. how can you tie him up while he's on the floor, sit on him on his back? he couldn't breathe. a decade on and the marchs following george floyd's death hold a haunting resonance for his mum. i don't watch, i can't watch, because the very thing my son was saying, i can't breathe, is what happened with george floyd. many other families, predominantly black, we have heard our loved ones say, i can't breathe. i remember when he was buried, somebody said how auspicious

an almond tree is. visiting his resting place offers some peace to his parents, but they say their pain remains unhealed, partly because of the legal process following his death. even though the inquest in 2017 found that the force used was unnecessary, unreasonable and excessive, a misconduct hearing cleared the officers involved. you don't feel as if there's any justice, really, you don't feel it. it's impossible. and that's what pains, really. rashan charles' family believed that justice would be forthcoming at the inquest into his death. i sat through every day,

every minute, of the coroner's inquest, st pancras, but i didn't realise that they were going to tell me and the nation that what you see on this cctv isn't happening. injune 2018, the inquest concluded that the officer's use of force was justified and that rashan‘s death was a consequence of a package he had inserted in his mouth blocking his airway. the officer is not found guilty of any misconduct. so, i hear that, i note it, but i am entitled to my professional opinion. there are good officers doing work across london and across the country. there are also officers who are letting the police service and society down. that's my stance. they chant: i can't breathe!

a number of cases, public inquiries have been held or coroners have had inquiries, and that comes to a conclusion that somebody was responsible either unlawfully for killing that person or neglected to protect them. and yet, despite all of that, nobody has ever been convicted of a murder or manslaughter since records began in relation to a death in custody. and should they have been? in my experience, tara, juries are loath to convict an officer. seemingly, the evidence threshold has to be even higher than it would be for a normal civilian. and that shouldn't be the case, but that seems to be what's happening. i don't trust you, mate, you've got a uniform on. very, very small numbers of individuals who come into our custody suites end dying. and there's a whole range of factors that can come to play. people often present with illness.

people often have illness episodes whi;st in custody. sometimes force has to be used to ensure that families, understandably, ithink, want to be able to identify an individual who's responsible for the death of their loved one. but very often, as we've seen through the various cases over the years, it isn't the actions of an individual that can be attributed to the death. there's a range of small things that, through a coming together with those small things, end up in a tragedy. as tensions have risen, angry scenes have erupted in what's but actually, we've been here before. 50 years ago, notting hill's black community marched on the streets following allegations of police

brutality and racism. ten years later, the brixton riots erupted after an area already blighted by high unemployment and poor housing became the target of tough policing measures. it's notjust communities that have accused the police of racial bias. in 1998, following the murder of stephen lawrence, lord macpherson‘s report branded the met institutionally racist. but discrimination still persists today and according to official data, if you're black, you're four times more likely to be stopped and searched. i gave evidence at

the macpherson inquiry. at that time, you were 15 times more likely to be arrested and charged and kept in custody if you're black than if you're white. more likely to be involved in an aggressive arrest and violence used by the officer. now we are 20—odd years later and it's more or less the same. i remember, even in those days, a sense of dread when you heard a siren, you know, because you felt, that means trouble. it's very similar to what i see with our young people, with our voyage programme, and what they talk about, you know, feeling overpoliced and underprotected, not getting a sense of partnership with with police. and we've trained them to work with police and other authority figures. so, if we don't get the grip and leadership from the top, we're gonna see certain officers being emboldened, think they can do anything

they want, is untouchable, and, you know, at any expense. former met police superintendent leroy logan founded voyage youth in hackney 20 years ago. a police officer should shoot you with respect, not strip him in the middle of the street. these sessions are designed to help young people know their rights if they're stopped and searched to try and prevent such interactions ending in the use of police force. if you give them an understanding of why police do what they do to get the best that they can counter, then hopefully others will say, well, actually, they've dealt with it well, the officer was nice to them, then that will create a more positive perception of stop and search. but i've been speaking to former and current met officers who have told me that attempts to build relations are being undermined by racist attitudes and actions in the force.

well, on the street, black kids aren't seen as children. they speak to them as if they're adults. they say things like, we explained the law to him. i say, but he's a child. they arrest them because they think they're older. one officer who's been on the beat in london for several years felt compelled to speak out about the racism that they've witnessed in the met. we agreed to protect their identity. they're more aggressive with us because they find us scary. they‘ re heavy handed and they don't listen if someone has an accent, theyjust shout, i can't understand you. as far as they're concerned, black people are more aggressive, their voices are more hoarse or heavy. when they're upset, they should calm them down, but instead, they're keen to put their hands on first, because it's fight or flight. particularly with black men. if a black person's upset, saying it's hurting, they say it looks fine because they can't see bruises. if you've never seen black skin, you can't see the bruising, they don't see them going red. i'm saddened to say that i feel the whole look and feel of policing, how you get incidences

of officers being... just devaluing and dehumanizing certain communities, especially black communities, it's obvious that certain people, when they're in that adrenaline—driven moment and they're seeing red, as it were, they don't know their boundaries. it doesn't affect communities for a few years, it will do so for generations. if they tell you that for years they have loved ones who have been stopped, searched or died in police custody, that's not going to go away first time. it also makes it impossible for officers who are doing a fantastic job, because they were out there in almost impossible circumstances. they mean well, they're working hard, but other officers have made that terrain impossible because of the things they have done and because of the things they're currently doing. police are investigating a triple stabbing... in carrying out their duties,

the police toe a fine line the perception is there that every time you see a police interaction with a young black man and it's in your community, if that's what you see regularly, i can understand that you would start to think there's something going on here. but all i would encourage people to do is to look at the broader piece. we use force responsibly and when we misuse it, we're held to account. even before this movement, the treatment of black people in police custody was a matter of intense scrutiny. a government—commissioned review in 2017 found that the colour of your skin has a measurable impact on how you are dealt with at every stage in the justice system. nathan has direct experience ofjust how brutal the system can be.

my dad's experiece of police brutality made me very upset and disgusted. his daughter recently wrote a poem after discovering that her father nearly died in a prison cell. police brutality is an issue that until recently hasn't been known or talked about much, with everyone kind of living under a rock, not knowing about it, of how the system is and how we live in the world. in october 2013, whilst working as a mini cab driver at heathrow airport, nathan was pulled over by two police officers who suspected him of taxi touting. despite the company he worked for confirming by phone that he was there to do a legal pick—up, the police decided to arrest him. why would six, seven, eight, nine police officers be on top of somebody who has already been

handcuffed on the floor? why? i was powerless. in the space of a few minutes or so, about six more officers, all of them has got my face on the ground. the officer who put handcuffs on me was using his right knee like that, on top of my chest. all i remember is the back of the van was open. they were throwing me like that, to the van. and my forehead hit the side of the door and i passed out. i didn't remember anything at all from that side. this is the cctv footage of the moment nathan was restrained. when my eyes open, my face was on the floor of a cell. half of my shirt is covered with blood and my breathing was cutting off. i didn't think i was going to survive. it took several hours before the police finally took nathan to hospital.

these photos, taken two days after he was allowed home, show his wounds. seven years on, he says he still bears some of the scars, but they're psychological. i'll come home. i don't want to see anybody, i just want to be alone. there's times ijust have to cry myself to sleep. there's times i'lljust have to cry myself to sleep. i don't want to see my children, i don't want to see anybody. during this time, there's about three occasions i did contemplate suicide. i spoke to my gp about it. nathan was charged with resisting arrest, biting an officer and illegally promoting his business.

yet he says there was no way he could disprove any of these accusations and was even warned by two solicitors that, as a black man up against the met, the odds were stacked against him. but then nathan's father in law decided to help him fight. the absence of any independent witnesses to speak up for nathan meant that we really to had to pull the stops out. he paid for nathan's legal support and even managed to obtain cctv footage of the arrest. we found a little bit of him being carried to the van and it completely contradicted the account that the police had put together. at the trial, the outcome, in my view, was very simple. the evidence didn't really add up. a magistrates‘ court dismissed all charges against nathan.

a 2017 government—commissioned review suggested 35 changes to the criminaljustice system to try and stop incidents like that endured by nathan and his family. yet, three years on, hardly any of those recommendations have been implemented. we must have more police officers and more senior police officers from minority backgrounds. we must have met many more judges and magistrates from minority background. you need to hear more from victims voices so they tell you that there is an issue around death in custody or an issue around arrest or whatever it may be.