I was 11 years old when 3 white British soldiers murdered my brother.

I was 11 years old when 3 white British soldiers murdered my brother.

I have never spoken publicly about this story so please forgive me for its lack of eloquence. I’ve never known how to say these words publicly. To share this is to give a vapid and violent society a chunk of my heart in the hopes that they won’t destroy it. I’m not holding my breath but, after recent events, even as close as the area I was brought up in, I have to say this aloud because it cannot continue.

 My earliest memory of my older brother Andrew was on a warm summer’s afternoon. We lived on a main road so the atmosphere was always busy, cars always hurtling past. I remember playing in the front garden alone, which was normal for me, being an only child (to my mother). My father had other children, 3 boys and 2 girls. The others are all much older than I and lived elsewhere.

I cannot remember my exact age but, I know I was very, very little. I’ve always been a tomboy and my 2 best friends at the time, Eric and Justin, who lived next door, were Jehovah’s Witnesses and had extremely strict schedules. When they weren’t allowed out to play, they’d sneak out of the house and we’d have conversations through a crack in the brown stained wooden fence between our houses. We were doing that the day of this memory.

A shiny red car, with sharp angles pulled up quickly on the roadside in front of our house and a man got out and walked down the drive towards me. He was 6 foot tall. Glowing Brown skin, big brown eyes, black curly hair and a massive square chin. I was a weird little kid. Scared of beards, scared of tall people, scared every man that wasn’t my dad or my oldest brother, but for some reason I wasn’t scared of this guy.

He looked like my oldest brother’s twin! Same build, same face, same square chin, a look of familiarity in his eyes. I knew, I knew him but, didn’t know how. “Who is this?” I thought as he strode towards me. The tallest man I had ever seen! A huge smile on his face, with the most perfect set of teeth. “Do you know who I am?” He said “No” I replied, transfixed at this colossal figure. “I’m your brother!” he said with such pride and instantly I knew it was true.

My father and he had, had a strained relationship. I knew each of my siblings but this was my 1st memory of Andrew. I’m now told by my mother that he swooped me up and brought me into the house. I don’t remember, but I do remember he went to speak with my parents and I ran straight back to the crack in the brown stained wooden fence to gloat to my mates.

“Who is that?” Eric & Justin asked about this beautiful Black man who walked with an air of gravitas and superstar grace. “My brother!” I replied with the fullest heart and the biggest smile that emphasised my massive square chin. The last time I ever saw Andrew was when I was holding his cremated body in the copper urn we were about to scatter his ashes from. I remember how heavy he was.

Andrew was in his 20’s when he was murdered in the street on a night out in our home town by 3 white British soldiers on weekend leave. This was before common use CCTV, before social media and before Stephen Lawrence. I was 11 years old, I wasn’t there, I was not allowed in court, my brother died alone so I cannot say whether his murder was anything other than an accident. But what I can tell you is that the men who killed my brother stabbed him in the head with a metal bar, hard enough to impale his skull so deeply that my brother had to have ½ of his brain removed before they eventually had to turn off the life support machine.

Because this was done by British soldiers, the crime wasn’t tried under a normal court; it was tried in a military court. I remember that there was a lot of frustration at the time due to the difference in procedure, the sense that we were just bystanders in their system with little to no power, just hoping for a glimmer of justice. Only 1 of Andrew’s murderers was charged and he was only tried for manslaughter. He received 18 months. Pittance for a life no?

The short sentence was at the very least a minute form of justice but, I remember the day we got the call that Andrew was dead. I remember my father. I remember as he sat there in silence. Winded, wounded. His face. The grief, the disbelief, the shock. The look no child should ever have to see on their parents face.  I was 11 years old but, I will never forget how my father looked at me, deep into my soul, “why? Why Andrew?” Something about this look that even as a child, you connect to on a deep, spiritual level and you both understand exactly what’s being said without any words.

Thankfully my family were saved the horror of having to watch my brother murdered in the street and left to die alone like an animal. I cannot even begin to imagine what it would have been like to have had to watched that incident with our own 2 eyes and then see it plastered all over social media. The murder of my brother ruined our entire family, both on my father’s and my brother’s mother’s side. I can barely bring myself to speak about it publicly now, it’s a private issue and it ours, that’s my brother! So I cannot even begin to fathom the pain it would have caused to have had to see that incident go viral and have the image of his lifeless body everywhere. This is the reason I don’t share the snuff films of Black people being murdered on social media and why I always ask people to share distressing images with caution and conscience. Yes make yourself aware but, be careful what and how you share.

The most egregious part though, one the most insidiously evil things I witness every now and again is the weaponisation of the utterly horrific murder of the British soldier Lee Rigby as a revenge tool by racists in this country when Black people are fighting for justice. They bastardise his name, his family’s pain and his memory every time Black people in this country fight for our rights, as if we all deserve inhumane treatment because of the unconscionable actions of 2 disgusting murderers and they continue to use his name and image to stoke the flames of division, even after the Rigby family have asked them not to.

There are many false equivalences with this vile trope but, let’s consider for a second that this should be a model for justice. Should I then weaponise the horrific murder of my brother by 3 white British soldiers to falsely equate that the murder of Lee Rigby was justified?! Vile! Hellish! Demonic! Absolutely not! Never!

Murder is never justified but, thankfully in both the cases, of Lee Rigby and my brother (however unjust it seems) their killers were convicted. Black people all over the world are seeing themselves murdered and mauled on camera every day and not seeing any semblance of justice being served. Not only are their lives being taken in some of the most horrific circumstances and the murder movie then shared worldwide like the latest sequel to The Hunger Games but, the people doing the murdering are being given A-List status, receiving awards and walking free.

 At some point you have to ask yourself “what would I do if I kept seeing my brother, my sister, my mother, my father, my child being murdered every day with no consequence?” I promise you this now and I say it with no sense of irony, I’d be tearing this entire thing down too!

If we are to ever see peace, we have to start to see justice