Racism v misogyny: who wins?

Police Scotland have apologised for the death of a man, but not to the diminutive woman PC he assaulted

Mar 26, 2025

On the morning of 3 May 2015, police were called to a residential district of Kirkcaldy following reports of a man high on drugs running berserk with a knife and threatening local people. After a scuffle, in which a female police officer was assaulted by the man, six officers attempted to restrain him. He lost consciousness and later died in hospital of asphyxiation. This is not an uncommon cause of death among people high on Flakka, the drug alpha-PVP, which was discovered in his bloodstream.

In 2018, the Lord Advocate, James Wolffe, ruled that no charges should be brought against any of the police officers involved since they had acted proportionately in the public interest. And there the matter might have rested. Except for one thing: the dead man, Sheku Bayoh, was black, and this was the era of Black Lives Matter.

The family of Mr Bayoh, 31, a trainee gas engineer and father of two originally from Sierra Leone in West Africa, launched a civil action and a high profile campaign claiming he was the victim of racist police using excessive force. In 2020, the then Scottish Justice Secretary, Humza Yousaf, overturned the Lord Advocate’s ruling and ordered a public inquiry into whether or not Mr Bayoh was the victim of “actual or perceive racism”. Four years later, the judge, Lord Bracadale, has yet to report.

But he might just as well not bother, because the Chief Constable of Police Scotland, Jo Farrell, has short-circuited the inquiry by agreeing this week to a “substantial” out-of-court settlement with Mr Bayoh’s family—much to the dismay of serving officers. This tacit admission of guilt—after all, why would Police Scotland agree to pay damages if it did not believe itself to be somehow in the wrong— surely renders the public inquiry, which has so far cost £18 million, rather pointless.

It appears to be yet another waste of public money by a profligate SNP government obsessed with race. The Bayoh settlement is supposed to have been made without any admission of liability by Police Scotland, but that is clearly otiose since Farrell has apologised to the Bayoh family for “his ordeal”.

The Scottish Police Federation, which represents officers, is furious. “On any view of the evidence,” said an SPF spokesman, “Bayoh took illegal drugs, engaged in a fight with a friend, armed himself with a large knife and then took to the streets of Kirkcaldy, where he terrified many members of the public before assaulting a female police officer by punching her to the ground.” These are facts established by the Bracadale inquiry.

Had it not been for BLM and critical race theory, which has spread like wildfire through the UK public sector, this episode might have been seen rather differently as a misogynistic assault on a female PC, Nicole Short. Had Bayoh been white, she might have been regarded as the injured party and commended for her bravery in tackling a much taller and muscular man. The press might have spun it as a case of toxic masculinity.

During the hearings Ms Short described her experience as being “completely overwhelmed with terror.” Despite being only 5ft tall, PC Short drew her baton and ordered Mr Bayoh to get on the ground. He then shouted, “F***ing come on then,” and began “boxing skipping” towards her. As she shuffled backwards, she felt an “almighty blow” to the back of her head and fell to the ground, moving into a foetal position until other officers rescued her.

Mr Bayoh’s family dispute Ms Short’s account of the incident despite It being corroborated by witnesses. They say no injury was discovered on her body and that Bayoh did not have a knife when police arrived. They say that he was treated with excessive force by six officers and sprayed with CS gas, which led to his asphyxiation. Most importantly they have claimed that this degree of force would not have been used had Bayoh been white.

The Bayoh family lawyer, Aamer Anwar, claims that “the colour of his skin, his blackness, was used as a weapon. It was seen as a weapon.” Anwar drew comparisons with the case of George Floyd, who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis in 2020 after resisting arrest. Many politicians and progressive commentators are eager to agree with Anwar and regard Farrell’s apology as confirmation of a “racist stain” on Scotland’s image.

Yet, it has been established since 2016 that Bayoh had been taking a drug known to cause rage, delirium, and paranoia. There is no doubt that he had been brandishing a knife—witnessed by members of the public—had resisted arrest, and had assaulted a female officer. However, owing to the intersectional predominance of the race issue, Ms Short’s fate has not been eclipsed by the politics of pigmentation. PC Short took early retirement from the force in 2018 after suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. No one has cried: “Say her name.”

Now, there have been allegations of racism in the Scottish police force for many years. The former Chief Constable of Police Scotland, Sir Iain Livingstone, even admitted upon his retirement in 2023 that the force is “institutionally racist.” His successor, Jo Farrell, has said it is her job to end this culture and to be “anti-racist.” However, addressing the nebulous offence of institutional racism should not mean dismissing overwhelming evidence. Nor should it involve second-guessing an inquiry convened at great expense to examine what bearing, if any, racism played in this episode. Being anti-racist should surely not come at the expense of natural justice.