Bayoh’s sister claims Scotland is racist country as she tells of guilt over his move

SCOTLAND is a racist country, the sister of Sheku Bayoh has said.

In an interview with the BBC, Kadi Johnson spoke of her guilt in encouraging her brother to relocate from London. She also said she would not encourage young black men to make the same move.

Mr Bayoh, 31, died after being restrained by police officers in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in 2015.

The family believes racism played a part in his death, and say they have yet to hear the truth.

Police were called in the early hours of May 3, 2015, after Mr Bayoh was spotted behaving erratically on the streets of his hometown. He was restrained on the ground for five minutes and became unconscious.

He was pronounced dead at hospital a short time later.

A public inquiry, which started taking hearings last week, was first announced in late 2019 and is considering issues including the circumstances of the death, the post-incident management and the extent to which events leading up to and following Mr Bayoh’s death were affected by his actual or perceived race.

Inquiry chairman Lord Bracadale has said he is “fully committed” to getting to the truth of Mr Bayoh’s death. The inquiry was set up after Scotland’s Lord Advocate declined to charge Police Scotland or the officers involved in the death.

Asked if she thinks Scotland is a racist country, Ms Johnson replied: “I’m afraid I’d say yes, because of the way we have been treated.

“When my brother died, instead of the police coming to me telling me exactly how my brother died, it’s just the lies they told me from the start. So, there was no trust in them. I don’t trust them anymore.

“How can you come to somebody to break sad news like that and yet you don’t know. You know the very first question they’ll ask you is, how did my loved one die? But then you’re saying you don’t know and you’re carrying on telling me so much lies.”

Mr Bayoh came to the UK from Sierra Leone as a child and was training to be a gas engineer at the time of his death.

Asked if she would recommend Scotland as a place for young black men to settle, Ms Johnson said: “Scotland was a place I loved and I encouraged him to come up [here] because I thought he’d have a better life living here.

“This will live with me for the rest of my life. Why did I even encourage him to come to Scotland? And now he’s no more.”

The family’s solicitor, Aamer Anwar, told the BBC that while there was a “significant minority” of Scots who have “become anti-racist”, there was a significant majority that is “silent on the issue of racism”.

“And then there is also a significant minority that are racist,” he added. “And it seems to be that when you scratch the surface, you see racism.”

He said the family’s seven-year battle for an investigation into Mr Bayoh’s death “wouldn’t have happened if Sheku had been white”.

Ms Johnson told the BBC change needed to come “from the grass roots, which is the schools”.

She said: “Start from the schools and work your way up, because it’s happening there. Black and ethnic minority children are experiencing that. So if it starts from there, hopefully changes will happen.”