Murdered by a Mob: The Killing of Bijan Ebrahimi

DIAL TONE

During that evening, someone has come over and said,

"Yeah, something's going to kick off tonight,"

but I didn't really know what they meant.

You taking pictures of me?

Go out of my house.

Don't take pictures of me, then. All right?

It was a shock for something as medieval and barbaric

as this to happen in a tight community.

A baying crowd had gathered, from which could be heard,

"I'm going to kill him."

I knew what happened would happen.

I'm not saying it's right.

I'm not saying what they did was right,

but I can see why they flipped.

How old are you? I'm a little boy.

Go out of my house.

DIAL TONE

Despite calling to the police,

despite calling to the council repeatedly,

repeatedly, he received no support.

He was ignored.

The murder was described as a deeply shocking

vigilante attack.

The quiet, disabled Iranian refugee was kicked and punched to death

outside his flat on a Bristol council estate,

doused with white spirit and then set alight.

They burnt the body.

Like a desecration.

I thought, "Why?

"Why? Why do that?"

What I saw that night will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Hm.

The story which is often told about Bijan

is that this drunk yob kicked a man to death,

set his body on fire.

But I can remember thinking,

"This isn't some drunken moment of madness.

"This has been going on for years,

"where the local authority and the police have known about this."

And I thought, "What on earth has happened

"to lead to this place?

"How many opportunities must have been missed for...

"..for Bijan to end...

"..as a burning corpse?"

HE SIGHS

Well, my heart sank when I was asked to come and talk to you about it

cos, you know, in a way, you don't want to

haul over these coals.

But it was a shock for something as medieval

and barbaric as this to happen in a tight community.

And I think so nasty that we in the council, I think,

had a corporate shock.

The reaction was one of, "Oh, my God.

"This is a real wake-up call."

Brislington is part of South Bristol.

South Bristol is traditionally white working class.

It's the biggest area of deprivation in the city.

In retrospect, it wasn't the right place to house Bijan,

in Brislington.

20 years ago, Brislington was THE place to live,

and I'm not quite sure what happened to it.

All of a sudden, we had these "White Bris"

written all over the pavements, over walls.

Someone, somewhere has got this issue that Brislington

should be predominantly white,

and all of a sudden you realise things aren't as cosy

in your environment as you believe them to be.

It totally threw me, that one, because I honestly believed

we were living in relative racial harmony.

I was amazed at the actual block he was housed in.

Capgrave Crescent is a...

It's almost a prison.

It's a block of flats in a triangular design

with an internal grass courtyard.

And all of the front doors face inwards to this,

so anything that goes on in that grass courtyard

cannot be seen from outside.

It made for a very unpleasant environment.

Bijan was subject to racial abuse.

He was called BLEEP.

He was called a paedophile.

They would throw stones at his plants,

break the pots.

They would leave rubbish on his doorstep -

beer cans, that sort of thing.

They'd gather late at night right outside his front door,

get drunk there.

It would be a constant barrage.

SHOUTING

Bijan brought all this on himself,

he was the one that came out and started the trouble.

He was the one that brought it on himself

because of the way he was.

It was never a race thing.

They didn't want to know the truth.

The reason I turned against him,

because of what he did to me, taking pictures of kids.

You just... You don't do things like that.

You don't take pictures of other people's kids.

I could see someone seriously hurting him,

if not murder.

Quite easily.

Ignore him. Ignore him.

I fucking warned him...

I'll come to your fucking house.

Don't take pictures of me, then, all right?

Go out of my house.

Get the fuck away with the fucking pictures, all right?

Ignore him.

How old are you? I'm a little boy.

Go out of my house.

Take pictures of me again, I'll fuck you up!

Bijan is filming Lee James' antisocial behaviour,

not his children, but Lee James' antisocial behaviour.

And I think the reason Lee James reacts to that

is because he does not accept that someone in Bijan's position

or someone of Bijan's ethnicity

should be allowed to make him accountable

for his behaviour in any way.

Ignore him. Stay away.

DIAL TONE Go ahead. Operator.

INAUDIBLE DIALOGUE

OK, bye-bye.

DIAL TONE

Police attended Bijan's home,

but instead of Lee James being arrested or warned

or some action taken against him,

the police decided to arrest Bijan,

even though there was no evidence or any allegation

from Lee James that Bijan had breached the criminal law.

So you can imagine, this is the scenario -

two police officers, and you have a baying mob

and you have Bijan.

And he's there, recording at the door.

There's only us here.

We haven't got any backup.

If this really does kick off, it's just us against them.

Volatile situation, man aggravating the situation.

What do you do?

"Go back indoors. You're making things worse.

"You're making our job worse."

You take away Bijan for his safety...

..because he isn't taking it on board to stay inside his house.

Or you arrest Lee James

and leave Bijan there with all the other people.

You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.

The police led Bijan from his home in handcuffs,

and by this time a baying crowd had gathered,

from which Lee James could be heard saying, "I'm going to kill him."

He's not the one causing all of this problem.

It's everybody else who's causing it,

but the easiest thing is,

"We'll just move him out of the picture."

And in doing so, you almost condone that behaviour,

and you say to people,

"You can break into somebody's house, you can call them

"a paedophile." And I believe that that is part of the reason why

the person who killed Bijan felt he could do it.

Because the police and council hadn't done anything before, so...

There was a wide range of abuse.

He had been covered in boiling water by a former council tenant which

resulted in that tenant's conviction, criminal conviction.

And that resulted in Bijan being relocated to another address

where he was the subject of an arson attack.

So around that time, there was a lot of problems on the estate.

There was a lot of graffiti,

there were fires, I believe

his property, he had fire put through his letterbox.

I think his car was set on fire.

My memory of him is seeing him

stood on his own outside looking a bit lost, I guess.

I found him quite an odd man.

I thought, to be honest, he was a bit strange.

I never really connected with him.

Looking back, I wondered if he had mental health problems.

I know that he wrote letters to a couple of my female neighbours.

I think he just wanted to make friends,

and make connections with people.

I don't know that it worked very well.

I can remember some of the female neighbours talking about Bijan

and saying he'd been inviting some of the children into his flat.

And there were some other neighbours who backed that up

and said it had happened to their kids as well.

Accusing him of being a paedophile.

There was no evidence to say that he was a paedophile.

He was a lonely guy inviting kids into his home for company,

to be kind, I don't know what it was about,

but that didn't make him a paedophile.

The petition said, "We, the undersigned,

"have concerns about one of our neighbours.

"He has been inviting children into his property, which has

"concerned a number of us.

"Could somebody explain to him

"that as a single guy you cannot invite kids into his house,

"you know, that people don't understand that and it upsets them."

"And we would like you to look into this, and move this man."

So I myself took it into the council, yeah.

I can't remember who I spoke to,

but I do remember thinking, "That was a waste of time."