If there is one constant theme in British policing it’s that when on duty cops kill innocent people they know that they will not face the courts. Today’s report into the death of Blair Peach continues that tradition and protects the identities of those who killed him. It seems that investigators at the time had a pretty good idea of who the killers were. It’s one of those historical quirks that in the same period the cops managed to torture confessions out of ten innocent people for bombings they hadn’t committed.

Here is the Metropolitan Police’s “of course it was us but you can’t prove it” statement.

Today, Tuesday 27th April, the Metropolitan Police Service is making the reports into the death of Blair Peach available to the public.

Blair Peach died on 24th April 1979. The day before he had attended a protest in Southall and received a head injury which led to his death.

At the time of his death there was a thorough investigation which stated that fourteen witnesses said they saw a police officer hit Blair Peach and that there is no evidence which shows he received the injury in any other way.

This of course is and has always been a grave concern to the MPS.

We have gone to great lengths to ensure that all investigative options currently available have been exhausted. To this extent the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has provided us with independent advice stating that there is nothing which would currently justify carrying out a further investigation.

Considering the understandable amount of public interest and the significant amount of time that has passed, now that we have had this advice from the CPS, we want to share the reports with the family of Blair Peach and the public.

We acknowledge the stress, suffering and upset his family and friends must have felt at the time of his death, and subsequently. We hope that in sharing the reports now we have provided some help in the family’s understandable quest for the facts of what happened that day in 1979.

We recognise that it is incredibly important for the family and friends of Blair Peach to be given details about the investigation and its findings. Consequently we are releasing a huge number of related documents as well as the main reports, this amounts to over 2,500 pages in total.

The main reports are three written in July 1979, September 1979 and May 1980 by former Commander Cass, who was asked to lead the investigation into Blair Peach’s death. Reports were written by two former Detective Chief Inspectors in December 1979 and March 1980. The first report concerns an allegation that two particular officers had been responsible for the death of Blair Peach. Investigation showed these two officers were not on duty at Southall at the time of the death. The second report relates to this same allegation and to a separate allegation of assault from a member of the public. In August 1999 former Commander Quinn carried out a review to ascertain whether there were any further lines of enquiry that would further the investigation.

The other material we are releasing includes: the hundreds of witness statements taken at the time, medical reports, disciplinary reports, transcripts of taped interviews, statements from pathologists and the decision of the then Director of Public Prosecutions.

It is important to remember that the majority of these documents were produced thirty years ago and that they reflect the way policing was rather than is. Despite this, at the time the investigation by Commander Cass was commended for being thorough and determined by the then DPP and Secretary of Police Complaints Board.

The Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, said: “I made a public undertaking to publish our material relating to Blair Peach’s death. Today we have done just that.

“As a police officer with over thirty four years service reading and being briefed on the investigation reports leaves me feeling deeply uncomfortable. Thirty one years later we have still been unable to provide the family and friends of Blair Peach with definitive answers regarding the terrible circumstances of his death. That is a matter of deep regret.

“After a thorough review of all our material I asked the Director of Public Prosecution to provide a further reassurance that through being transparent we would not inadvertently endanger any potential prosecution. The CPS has now confirmed there are no further realistic avenues that we can pursue. I am of the clear view that the right place for these documents is the public domain.”

· View the reports