The saddest death & largest funeral I’ve ever known
When I was a kid my family had Sri Lankan friends who lived in the UK. The father of this family, Joe, was on a business trip to Spain when he was shot & killed by the Spanish police, in front of his daughter, who was accompanying him on the trip as it was half term. This was in 1986 and she was 13.

Apparently they were travelling by taxi from Seville (I think) airport to the city centre when the taxi was stopped by the police. Joe went to undo his seat belt to get out of the car to find out what was going on. A policeman shot him in the neck, the bullet passing in front of his daughter. Later the police officer claimed that he had thought that Joe was reaching for a gun, so shot him in self- defence.

His daughter, my school friend, was flown back by the British government to a private airport in the UK. Joe’s body was brought back separately and he was buried a week or so later. I cannot begin to comprehend the trauma she must have gone through witnessing her father killed, particularly given the way that he died. We’ve lost touch now but I wouldn’t be surprised if she was still having therapy now, nearly 27 years later.

The reaction of the media to Joe’s was disgusting; not in what they reported, but the lengths they went to in order to obtain photos of his wife and daughter. They lived in a flat on the second floor & tabloid photographers established scaffolding on the pavement to get to the same height as the flat in an attempt to take photos of the family through the window. This was before there was any legislation about right to privacy or media intrusion.

Joe was well known in the town, he was active in his church and in other aspects of the community. He was from a large family – at least ten brothers & sisters, all of whom came to the UK for the funeral. One of his brothers was an Anglican minister and he conducted the service. Me and my family were amongst more than 500 people who attended the funeral. 500 pairs of eyes focusing on this 13 year old girl who had watched her father die in a gruesome way. It must have caused additional distress to the family that Regional TV cameras were outside the church together with a large number of the press. There were so many mourners cars that the council chose to close the town one way system to allow all the cars to go from the church to a cemetery a couple of miles away. He was an uncomplicated man and it was an uncomplicated service.

Following his death the local MP got involved to find out exactly what had happened and why. The diplomatic relationship between Spain & UK wasn’t too brilliant at the time, but the MP found out as much as he could and pushed the British Foreign Office to press for justice. The policeman was jailed for just six months for ‘unintentional manslaughter’ and lost his job. The family sued the Spanish government and received around £500k for the loss of Joe’s life. Even if it had been 100 times as much it would never have compensated my friend for the loss of her dad.

As this happened in 1986 there isn’t much detail online about what happened, but I’ve put what links I have been able to find as a reply to this post in case anyone is interested.

( Fucking hell Jeff I am not a robot, Fri 12 Apr 2013, 16:21, 2 replies)

Links
www.itnsource.com/shotlist//ITN/1986/10/31/139240/?s=intw
hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1987/mar/10/mr-joe-rajiah-shooting
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19861101&id=8qRAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=paUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6684,40632
hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1987/feb/16/mr-j-rajiah
( Fucking hell Jeff I am not a robot, Fri 12 Apr 2013, 16:21, closed)

i remember that
the shooting, not the details, i was only 12 myself. we'd not long got back from a trip to calella, my mum went into overdrive, saying it could have been one of us. horrible way for police to behave, that poor girl and her mother deserved more from them than mere money.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 12 Apr 2013, 16:30, closed)