MAG 43: Section 31

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Statement of Police Constable Basira Hussain regarding her time investigating strange occurrences as part of Section 31. Statement taken direct from subject.
==Statement==
Police Constable Basira Hussain has signed the Section 31 form, forever marking her apart from her police colleagues. 'Section 31' refers to Section 31 of the Freedom of Information Act, and is an exclusion for information regarding law enforcement, so details that could interfere with the prevention or detection a crime can not be given to the public. These are usually used for those cases that are paranormal in nature, such as the case of Jane Prentiss attacking the Magnus Institute and Gertrude's discovered body.
Officers who have signed a Section 31 form, or been "sectioned", are informally marked out by the others and from then on assigned to work with other sectioned officers and called on to handle potentially paranormal cases. Other officers try to avoid weird cases, to avoid being sectioned themselves. One of her partners who had also signed a Section 31 was Richard Carver.
Her first Section 31 case was in August 2011, about a year after she joined the force when she was partnered with John Spencer. At a fire near Clapham a man had become violent. When they arrived at the scene, they found the bald Hispanic man in his mid-to-late forties detained by two firemen. He shouted about "cleansing fire", "all shall be ash" and "Asag". Although he had come out of the burning buildings he had no burns, but when Basira went to cuff him the metal of the handcuffs became red hot immediately, burning her. The Hispanic man whispered something to Spencer. They later discovered his name was Diego Molina and took from him, amongst other things, a red bound leather book. Before Diego was released, Spencer was suspended for trying to burn the book, before apparently killing himself by bathing in boiling water (officially via a kettle, which Basira notes as being a particularly weak cover-up).
Basira's next genuine Section 31 case was on 18th July 2014. Alice "Daisy" Tonner was her partner at the time, she had also been Sectioned years before Basira was on the force, originally due to "spider husks" (possibly human sized, or spider-like husks of people), and had mentioned vampires. In Kensington they were called to a set of flats where gunshots had been heard. They approached the room to find a man in a room with painted over windows and smashed lights, full of expensive trinkets including many old domino sets in glass cases. He had been repeatedly shot in the face from close range. When the two approached he lurched into life and grabbed the gun, attempting to point it at his head, but Daisy was able to wrestle it away from him. He was taken away by paramedics and the death was ruled a suicide.
Harry Altman had also been a part of Section 31 and had seen some deeply disturbing things whilst on these cases.
Basira confirmed that Gertrude's body is being investigated as a murder, but because it is related to the Magnus Institute her colleagues are not willing to help. At present, Daisy cannot help as she is CID and currently the only Section 31 detective.
== Post-Statement ==
Jonathan Sims confirms that they are not able to get the tapes as they are in police custody. Basira does not think that those at the Institute can help the investigation.
He remarks that the name of the man from case 0121102 (MAG 12) is now known to be Diego Molina and that he has a suspicion as to where he got the book. He expresses sadness that the man is dead but states that a piece of the puzzle cannot be ignored. 
== Supplemental ==
John reveals that Basira actually agreed to giving him access to tapes when she could, although she admitted that this would be quite infrequent. He worries about the possibility of not finding anything on the tapes.
== Continuity ==
*Harry Altman could be the "Officer Altman" mentioned in MAG 5: Thrown Away
*Basira references unprovable potential Section 31 cases, including one involving a "spooky clown doll," potentially the same one from MAG 24.
	
* Basira says that Daisy mentioned encountering "vampires" once, and hopes she was joking. In MAG 61, Daisy gives John a statement where she admits that she has encountered vampires, saying that she has killed 5 of them in the 9 years before giving her statement in 2016. Additionally, in MAG 82 Elias gives Daisy's statement and confirms that she dealt with vampires in or before 2011.
* The man attempting suicide is potentially Nathaniel Thorp, or one of the "others" mentioned in his statement in MAG 29, due to the domino sets as well as apparent immortality.
*Related Entity: The Desolation and The End.
== Trivia ==
* In the UK, to be "sectioned" commonly means to be compulsorily committed to a psychiatric hospital, in accordance with some section of the Mental Health Act.
Category:Live Statements
Category:The Magnus Archives Episodes