In today’s episode, we present some excerpts from our Women vs The State live talk that took place at the Photo North Festival in Manchester in the first week of May 2022. In the panel, we had the pleasure of hearing from Gail Hadfield Grainger, whose partner was unlawfully murdered in an extra-judicial killing by Greater Manchester Police, Mags McNally, her law partner, their client Zayna and crisis campaigner and journalist Samantha Asumadu.
Zayna talks about her experience with the Greater Manchester Police. In the podcast she explains that she was drugged and raped. In February, she was intoxicated and felt unwell, so she called her friend Richard, then he called 999. He asked for an ambulance; however, the Manchester police turned up first.
Zayna says, “I sometimes blame myself.”
She flashed the officers from inside the property while they were still outside. That was when her door flew open, and she accidentally knocked off the female officer’s glasses. The officers put her in their car with them as she passed out.
After 7 hours, she had no record of what happened. Unfortunately, she did not regain her memories till the end of March. After being discharged from the hospital, she wanted to recall what had happened to her and she submitted a Subject Access Request form. All she wants is her legal rights to be observed, and to find out what the officers did to her that day.
Gail says they should have had her on a mental health observation, health checks etc while with the police. Clients in the same situation as Zayna have lost their faith in the police, and their mental health was shattered.
Situations where police officers are accused of sexually assaulting women are not taken seriously. As a journalist, Samantha wrote an exclusive series on indefinite imprisonment sentences for public protection (IPPs), where she profiled some prisoners in jail for ten years. She found that a generation of working-class black Asian and white working-class men and women were in prison for minor crimes.
Gail claims that they are not in for the crime they were sentenced, but rather invented allegations and they are subjected to mental abuse amounting to torture that has been inflicted on them. In
In 2012, the government banned the sentence; people who were meant to be in prison 15 -17 years later have still not been released.
You can find out more about Someone’s Daughter campaign at theviewmagazine.org
The View is the only organisation in the third sector that puts women with lived experience at the heart of all that we do, from our board, to our volunteers, The View is a living community that is creating a brighter future through art, story-telling and hope.
Come and be part of our brave mission and vision for a fairer world.
For more unmissable content from The View sign up here
In today’s episode, we present some excerpts from our Women vs The State live talk that took place at the Photo North Festival in Manchester in the first week of May 2022. In the panel, we had the pleasure of hearing from Gail Hadfield Grainger, whose partner was unlawfully murdered in an extra-judicial killing by Greater Manchester Police, Mags McNally, her law partner, their client Zayna and crisis campaigner and journalist Samantha Asumadu.
Zayna talks about her experience with the Greater Manchester Police. In the podcast she explains that she was drugged and raped. In February, she was intoxicated and felt unwell, so she called her friend Richard, then he called 999. He asked for an ambulance; however, the Manchester police turned up first.
Zayna says, “I sometimes blame myself.”
She flashed the officers from inside the property while they were still outside. That was when her door flew open, and she accidentally knocked off the female officer’s glasses. The officers put her in their car with them as she passed out.
After 7 hours, she had no record of what happened. Unfortunately, she did not regain her memories till the end of March. After being discharged from the hospital, she wanted to recall what had happened to her and she submitted a Subject Access Request form. All she wants is her legal rights to be observed, and to find out what the officers did to her that day.
Gail says they should have had her on a mental health observation, health checks etc while with the police. Clients in the same situation as Zayna have lost their faith in the police, and their mental health was shattered.
Situations where police officers are accused of sexually assaulting women are not taken seriously. As a journalist, Samantha wrote an exclusive series on indefinite imprisonment sentences for public protection (IPPs), where she profiled some prisoners in jail for ten years. She found that a generation of working-class black Asian and white working-class men and women were in prison for minor crimes.
Gail claims that they are not in for the crime they were sentenced, but rather invented allegations and they are subjected to mental abuse amounting to torture that has been inflicted on them. In
In 2012, the government banned the sentence; people who were meant to be in prison 15 -17 years later have still not been released.
You can find out more about Someone’s Daughter campaign at theviewmagazine.org
The View is the only organisation in the third sector that puts women with lived experience at the heart of all that we do, from our board, to our volunteers, The View is a living community that is creating a brighter future through art, story-telling and hope.
Come and be part of our brave mission and vision for a fairer world.
For more unmissable content from The View sign up here
Welcome to the View Magazine's Rebel Justice podcast from our someone's daughter podcast series. This week we bring you some excerpts from our women versus the State Live talk, which took place at Photo North Festival in Manchester this past week. In the panel, we have the pleasure to hear from Gail Hatfield Granger, whose partner was unlawfully murdered in an extra judicial killing by Greater Manchester Police, Mags McNally, her law partner, their client, Zayna and journalist Samantha Amadu. Zayna, can we start with you if you'd be happy to tell us what took you to Hatfield Granger and McNally legal Consultants?
Speaker 2:My name's on the fifth and 6th of February. I was for an excess of 40 hours by Great Manchester Police Complete Station. During my time with Manchester Police, I was drug and Manchester Place. Told the hospital that they had found me in the state that I was in and they were concerns about me. Prior to arriving at the hospital, I was with Manchester Police, like I said, for 40 hours at Penton Police Station. Stupidly. Um, on the 5th of February, I, I got intoxicated and I felt really unwell. So I made a call to my friend Richard. He called nine. He asked for an ambulance for Greater Manchester Police turned up first the dispatched two police funds, one police cop, four male officers, and a female officer for a check on welfare in a drunk state. And I, I, I kind of sometimes blame myself because I believe this is the point that they broke in. I flashed the officers from inside the properties. The officers were still outside the property. That is the point that my doors went through and outta fear and I think I was as well. I accidentally knocked the female officers glasses off the face. Handcuffs went on and I was put into the back of the band at 2:05 AM I remember an officer getting into the vehicle with me and when the vehicle started moving, I remember feeling dizzy and I passed out of 40 hours of custody footage. They released 37 hours. The custody record, nothing tells up, everything points to, I didn't regain my memory until end of March, early April. But I remember when I was discharged from hospital, I couldn't understand what caused the injuries, why I ended up in hospital. I got fixated with building a timeline. I spoke to everybody that I spoke to on my phone. I made subject access requests. It has been all the 14 months and I am still waiting for the subject access request to be supplied to me. I haven't, I have contacted every organization I can possibly think of and I'm hitting a brick wall. All I'm asking for is my legal right to be filled, fulfilled. I want the footage cause I want to know exactly what these officers did to me whilst I was in today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for your share. Zayna Gail, you have had challenges with the Greater Manchester police yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I just wanted to just touch on Zena's story as well. So when Zays come to us, we've helped a fight for the subject's access request and the videos. Um, we was shocked that they supplied so much footage and what Zayna was saying is after so long in the police cell, something would happen. She would be attacked or assaulted in somewhere sexual and then she would come back to the room. But the office was completely disproportionate of how they even handled her Before the attacks started to happen, they should have had her on full 24 hour observation. She should have had her mental health, her nurse check and everything. She was failed completely by the police. I think one thing that's really stands out as well with a lot of the clients that we work with now is it's not so much that this happened to them or something happened to'em. It's that breakdown of the trust when the police are the state or prisons break that from you. It shatters your mental state as well because you've lost all faith in the system as well, as well as dealing with what's happened to you until there's some kind of closure. This is how the state of leaving women, um, because they don't see that, and I'm not saying it's everybody, but for men and some men with with power. And we see it all the time in the news, you know, police officers done for police officers, sexual assault, The prisons have done something when they see a person which is there. The thing, sure they got sexually assaulted. I mean it's not age. Let's have a look at the drug personnel. Let's have a look at this. And it's like it gets pushed on though. It's not important, but it is.
Speaker 1:Samantha, you have been covering a lot of similar stories as a journalist. Would you like to share more about your experience?
Speaker 4:So the reason I've been invited here is cause I'm also a journalist and I did, uh, exclusive two part series on um, ipp, which are indeterminate sentences for public protection. And I did that for open democracy. Basically I profiled some prisoners who'd been in prison mostly over 10 years. And so what I found is in the course of three months, I worked in the story and, and indeterminate senses for public protection, but brought in by labor government, uh, specifically law Blan around 2003, 2004. And what we found was a generation of working class black, Asian and um, and white, uh, working class men and women who were put in prison for very minor crimes. To be honest, I don't often ask what crime these people did. It doesn't matter cause they, you know, they were put in for a certain thing 17 years later. They're not in for that. I'll tell you what they're in for is the mental abuse and torture that the prison system has implemented on them over years. And that's documented by psychologists, by their families and so on. And then, so my editor will just ask me, Can you go back and just get political reactions to your first story? You know, get some quotes. So I went to Lord Blunkett the originator of this sentence, who actually campaigns against it now, Now he's not gotten power. Uh, yeah cuz it was banned in 2012 before human rights abuse. Uh, Kenco got rid of it. What happened in 2012 when the sentence was banned is they didn't, they didn't retroactively leave take people outta prison. All these people who had been in supposedly supposed to be in for two years who are now in by 15, 17 years later, were not let out. Retrospectively, if they do get out sometimes in parole, they're on a license, any little thing happens and they get put back in, which is another whole big thing. But anyway, I went to get political reactions. I got so from Lords, greens, lib, dams, all these people all condemning it outright. Yeah. People who campaign for prisons condemning it outright and then, um, and then through, but I'm still talking to the families. I'm talking to the ministry dust, there's the parole service, getting quotes from them, blah, blah. And this pattern emerged and the pattern that happened was we found, what I found that, uh, what was happening is that the prison service or someone, nobody's admitting it yet, we're putting false crimes on these prisoners, uh, files. Like things that they couldn't have done. Everything I did, I had to get documents. Yeah. My editor was not letting me publish anything with document without documents between the Ministry of Justice, parole build, prison Service. They're keeping those people in and I called them political prisoners now. So some, there's something called the prison cohorts. So the type of sentence you get. And, um, so IPP are the highest suicide rate and they are the highest self harming. Just a week ago, Dominic Rob has said that he's not gonna let these people out. And that's, and I, for me, I believe it's cuz they know how much compensation they're gonna need to give to these people and as it prefers to women. So, uh, I'm working on another investigation at the moment and this has really opened my mind. But I'm looking at what's happening to women in very delicate living circumstances. So pre precarious living, you know, renting from this person, that person. And I found every time, I'm not gonna go into it too much cause I'm still investigating it, but I feel that police and the councils in some way work together to, to manage and oppress vulnerable women. Uh, and they use, um, these, well the mental health holds what they call, um, you know, sectioning Yeah. To do that. And I've found a pattern and hopefully I'll be able to prove it. But I do believe there is an important need for the press to, to, to, to talk about this. And I, I should say, so I did it for open democracy and that's a smaller platform, but I went first to like, I've written for The Telegraph. They didn't want it out to zero New York Times, all these people. And since then, even because the family's still keep in touch with me, they want justice, they want people out. So I contact journalists and ask them, do you know, can you follow this? I've got all these other documents you could use. You could have an exclusive. And ITV did do something. Uh, but they didn't talk about the actual real crimes the state are doing, which is the fake crime. People don't care about working class, white, black, brown women or men. And it's very hard to get that stuff into the press. But I think there will be a barrier that breaks at some point and stories like they have to come out. Yes.
Speaker 1:Mags, you represent Zayna. What would you like to add?
Speaker 5:The reason why I wasn't coming in, it's really important. This is just, this is just one crime in our office. We have reportive crimes just like this that nobody's dealing with. All female. Now I'll tell you a little bit about me, Sue. I'm one of the directors along with Gail of Hatfield gr legal consultant. I worked in law by accident. I really didn't wanna go down that route. I wanted to be a criminology to a greater Manchester police. And, and that was so well studying to be a criminology. They were saying, you know, to go for interviews and a legal position came. Unfortunately, I got the job, I spoke to my lecturer, I said, I don't want it except take it. It's a good opportunity. I ended up staying there after 15. I was one of the ones that started, um, uh, prison law business for the firm, which was massive. One of the biggest in the uk. And during, during doing that, I, I was a prison law lawyer in all the prisons across the uk, male prisons and female prisons. I used to do adjudications in prison rather than bringing support, they bring people in to represent them, to bring the judge in. And it all takes place in court. I've represented women that's been rap by offices and they, they managed to walk for, represented women who've been impregnated by offices in the prison, not out of choice, forced upon them and nothing get stood. Although we could represent them, I felt that we needed to do more. So then we, I became part of taking action against most of the prisons in the uk. Ally reviewing a lot in the female prisons. When in a lot of cases as with a team, not just myself as a team, I then felt cuz I was working regulated under the sra. Unfortunately there's only a certain level you can go to without becoming outside the guidelines. I met Gail 10 years ago, still working in law and we always talked about the possibility of maybe doing a bit of lot of stuff together. She was studying law. So we decided that we would start a business but not a business like typical solicit firms that you see everywhere in the uk that where they look at the clients from a monetary point of view. Cause that that's the bit that I always felt uncomfortable with. They were about money and it wasn't about the person. So I left and that was started. This, this business, this business represents people. Unfortunately we've been subjected through the state to what Zane's going to, subjected to. We have men, male, female, young, old. So we make a night and we do spend a lot of time. We do the work on it say's case is gonna be good. Unfortunately case is like this. She went to a a, a solicits for that doesn't work the way we do, they wouldn't take the case time.
Speaker 1:Gail, how did you become involved with being a law practitioner?
Speaker 3:Um, similar to Mike's I have no interest in. I had no interest in law. I've been a machinist, I've been a mechanic. I've worked in bars, I've worked in clubs. I'm a qualified painter, a decorator. I do not care about the law or at least I didn't as growing up. I've been through adverse childhood experiences. I've been homeless. I've been with all the men from the age of 14. My boyfriend was 22 from the age of 16. My boyfriend was 30 at the age of 15. My boyfriend was 28. Each one of them thought it was okay to be up a girl. I didn't think anything of it cause it had always happened. Then I stayed with my son's dad for six years. The day that I found out were pregnant, I didn't touch another drug because before this boyfriend are a bit older, think it's okay to give a young girl, it's okay, just take this, just take this. And you think, well actually you let me sleep in your house, you'll let sleep in your bed. Better do it. So I had a colorful childhood. So like I said, each one of these bi boyfriends were always a bit hands, um, thought it was okay to give the occasional slap punch, Brooke and Red Brooke and Nas. And then I met an Granger who was not like that. So at the age of 26, I found myself pregnant to somebody else's husband. We all got arrested. I was looking at 10 years in prison. Um, and while I was at the police station, the police officer came up to me, he said, You do know if your boyfriend just goes guilty, you'll work free. Um, and I said, Well I don't want him to go guilty cuz it's nothing to do with me. You know, I'll fight my own case, thank you. And what he did then was pass me his phone number, say, Well when he gets 20 years, give us a call and when you drop that kid, I'll start you out. So I thought I'm definitely winning this case.<laugh>. So I started studying law. I'm not studying in law, but should I looking into the law, fought McKay. I was on trial, five trials, four different juries, two and a half years. It was one of the biggest drug sagas that happened in Greater Manchester. We all got not guilty and I got not guilty. Yeah. But by this time I had to work. I had to be in court five days a week. I had to be a mom to a newborn child and a nine year old. And I really got this, this feeling against greater Manchester police because it set us up. And as we're walking out, I was on trial with Anthony Granger, who at the time wasn't my boyfriend. We got together during the trial. What I was pregnant with my daughter, he knocked, police officer knocked into him, went, Don't think this is obviate you prick, let the alert are you shot dead by Great Manchester place. Um, so I didn't know what to do. First thing you do, I thought, right, well I'm going to all these meetings, these in uh, these I O P C meetings. I, um, didn't have a clue what they were saying. It was all acronyms and well part of the ctf o and i, OBC and cps. And I thought, okay, well, so I went to college. So I studied psychology, social politic politics and everything just to get me into university. Cause in case you hadn't notice, I'm a mature student. So got into university, I studied law and criminology during this time, five years down the line was still not had any anything done. The police officer actually got promoted in the meantime and shot him. So then I certainly meeting other people that have been affected by the state or big names like Janet Alder, you know. And basically what happens is when somebody's killed by the state, which is what I specialize in, it's often a man. When you do studies, it's very, very rarely a woman. And although it does happen. So then what's left behind a mother, a wife, somebody with children, you've then gotta teach your child that the police aren't bad. And if anything ever happened to go to the police and make sure everything's all right. Well really sitting there thinking, Don, please. But you can't instill that into your children. You've gotta work to make the money cuz you don't get funding for inquest. When somebody's been killed by the police, you don't get any help. You don't get any support. So whilst I was doing that, I was obviously working, studying, and then I, we got a landmark decision on our case. So that night when he was sat there, when 16 and officers, none of them were in a police badge, none of them in a police car. And they pulled up into the car park that night and they shot within under three seconds. I didn't get told till the day after I was at home making tea frame. They didn't even bother coming telling me, I actually have to Google it when someone told me. Oh. So after this, I've been stalked because I get quite a few strange people. I ring the police, they've never been out. I've been stocked where people are putting pictures of me online and threatening in me, our business.
Speaker 1:So what do you think can be done? I mean, raising awareness is very important, isn't it? Zayna
Speaker 2:For me, I'm not bothered about my anonymity. It's come past that stage to me. I lost everything that night. Um, so for me, if I can want as many people, the people are here that you could tell you mothers, your father says that you plan.
Speaker 1:And why haven't we seen your case on the news yet?
Speaker 3:We've got meetings on next
Speaker 5:Week. If she wasn't with us, she could go straight to them. But because we're preparing a case, something she could do could jeopardize the preparation of the case. Don't worry. Once the case is out there, you'll see, you'll see this everywhere. But the thing is, if we allow her to do that now, then the jeopardy to her would be irreparable.
Speaker 1:And this concludes our podcast for today with excerpts from the Live Talk Women versus the State, which took place at Photo North Festival in Manchester. Thank you very much to the speakers for their shares. You can find out more about someone's daughter exhibition@theviewmag.org.uk. The view is the only organization in the third sector that puts women with lived experience. At the heart of all, all that we do from our board to our volunteers, The view is a living community that is creating a brighter future through art, storytelling, and hope come and be part of our brave mission and vision for a fair world. Thank you for listening.