PCS agrees donation to support Justice For Jay Abatan campaign

The campaign for justice for Jay Abatan, who was murdered in a racist attack, will receive a boost of £3000 from PCS towards legal work.

Jay, a 42-year-old father of two and member of the PTC - a predecessor union of PCS, died following the attack in Brighton 25 years ago.

He and his brother Michael were attacked by a group of white men on 24 January 1999 and Jay died in hospital 5 days later, having sustained severe head injuries.

Two men were arrested and charged with manslaughter. However, by the time of the trial the charges were reduced to affray and actual bodily harm to Michael.

On the instructions of the trial judge the jury was not told that Jay had died of his injuries. The two men were cleared by the jury.

To this day no one has been brought to justice for Jay’s murder and the Justice for Jay campaign has now launched a Crowdfunder to raise funds to pursue a legal challenge.

Both Jay and Michael had previously been civil servants and were members of the PTC. PCS has supported the Justice for Jay Campaign and Michael has spoken at PCS events, including our national conference.

The PCS National Black Members' Committee also played a key role in providing practical support for the campaign and organising fundraising initiatives.

We were approached by the campaign to contribute towards legal costs to support some preliminary investigatory work with a view to submitting a formal complaint to the Independent Office for Police Conduct. Our national executive committee met this week and agreed to make a donation of £3000 to facilitate the work on this case.

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