Do you agree with what Lawrence has to say, though, that reparations then should be asked from countries, for example, like Ghana as well?

well?I think you have to make a distinction between the law and justice.

What the Jamaican government are trying to do is go to the Judicial Committee of the Private Council for a legal ruling on the legality.

Now, I hear the person who's argued that it was illegal at the time.

Then the question, it begs the question, then why was it that 20 million pounds compensation were given to plantation owners? And why was it that that debt was part of the national debt, which the women's generation, my parents, when they first came to Britain, um, in the 1950s, and myself and other people from a Caribbean African heritage have contributed and paid that national debt for those plantation owners in 1833.

So the point that you're making is semantics about was it law or not law.

We know that in, in, in international law, there have been a number of rulings at international level that have recognized atrocities of the past and recognized them that there has to be justice and reparative justice.

Sure.

Do you think bringing your position of empathy into the work you're doing has been really core to it?

Absolutely, absolutely.

I think, again, from my early experiences, a lot of people, again, going back to people going to a CAB for advice, people come to a CAB when they're desperate.

They're really desperate, they don't know where to go.

And CAB, the way it was set up after the Second World War, it was about giving that advice, assistance and support to people.

And so when people come to a Citizens' Vice Bureau or Welfare Rights or Law Centre, they are literally desperate for assistance.

And one of the aspects of that request for assistance is that they've been treated with lack of dignity and respect by... where it's NHS, local government, Jobcentre Plus, benefits, DWP, it doesn't really matter, the police, you know, people feel that they've been looked in the way, they've been seen through the lens of all the data around health inequalities, and therefore they've been put in a box, basically.

So listening, I suppose, is one stage, but how do we get them to act? Well, it's about agency as well.

Without any further ado, Patrick Vernon.

Friends, sisters and brothers, I want to thank all of you for coming here tonight.

We are here first and foremost for Professor James Arday to pay our respects and to stand in solidarity with his grieving family.

Our family has lost a son, a husband, a brother and a relative and someone they love.

And while they grieve, Let's think of them tonight.

Not only are they hurting, but we are also hurting too, aren't we? As a community, as a nation even.

People sometimes automatically make the comparison what happened in 2020 with George Floyd and the Black Lives movement.