Killing of Jay Abatan
Jay Abatan died in hospital in January 1999 following an atttack outside the Ocean Rooms nightclub in Brighton, UK. He had been celebrating a promotion at work when an altercation over a taxi resulted in several men assaulting him and his brother. Abatan was seriously injured and died in hospital five days later. Two men were charged with manslaughter then not prosecuted. Two subsequent reviews of the investigation by Sussex Police reported major errors and the killing was later announced to have been racially motivated. The family of Abatan campaigned for justice, supported by local Members  of Parliament. In 2010, an inquest was held and returned a verdict of unlawful killing. A vigil was held outside Brighton police station in January 2022. Early life. Jay Abatan was born in England and moved to Nigeria when he was six years old. He moved back to England at the age of 18 and became an accountant, working first for the Inland Revenue and then for PricewaterhouseCoopers. He lived in Eastbourne and was engaged to be married with his partner; they had two children together, aged 8 and 9. Killing. On the night of 23 January 1999, Jay Abatan  went out in Brighton with his brother Michael and another friend, intending to celebrate his promotion at work to the position of senior tax advisor. The group went to a wine bar, then to the Ocean Rooms nightclub on Morley Street in Carlton Hill. At 2:30 am, they left the club and called a taxi. When a taxi arrived, the three believed it was for them, so they asked the two men inside it to get out. An altercation occurred with those men and others, in which the two Abatan brothers were assaulted. Jay Abatan was punched two times in  the face and fell over, fracturing his skull on the pavement. His brother was kicked and punched as he tried to help him. The attackers then drove off in the taxi. Jay Abatan regained consciousness in the ambulance, then slipped into a coma and was taken to the intensive care unit at the hospital; he died of his injuries five days later. Michael Abatan survived the assault and began a campaign for justice for his brother; the family were convinced that the attack had been racially motivated. Michael Abatan commented in 2019 "all the people that got hit that day  were mixed race. No white people got hit.". Two men were quickly arrested by Sussex Police and charged with manslaughter, then the charge was dropped for lack of evidence. They were also charged with affray and causing actual bodily harm to Michael Abatan; at trial by jury they were found not guilty. The judge did not tell the jury that Jay Abatan had been killed in the attack. One of the two former suspects committed suicide in 2003; the same year the Abatan family and Sussex Police offered a reward of £175,000 for any help in finding the killers . Legacy. After the Abatan family pressured for more information about what had happened on the night, an investigation was organised by another force, Essex Police. It ran from July 1999 until December 2000, finding that there had been 57 serious errors made by Sussex Police, which included not taking the details of witnesses and not setting up a crime scene. It stated that recommendations made by the Macpherson Report about the murder of Stephen Lawrence had not been followed. Sussex Police refused to release the full report, but parts were leaked to the press, leading to the force offering a  public apology to the Abatan family and stating for the first time that the killing was racially motivated. Sussex Police replaced their entire investigation team with 36 new detectives and launched a new enquiry. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) invited another report from Avon and Somerset Police, led by Ken Jones, which again found that Sussex Police had made serious mistakes. Jones then became chief constable of Sussex Police and promised to keep the family informed, although the force refused to release the IPCC report. It also did not authorise an inquest. In 2005, three police officers were disciplined  for blunders they had made. A detective superintendent was found guilty of five misconduct charges and was docked nine days' pay; later in the year, two detective inspectors were found guilty of misconduct.Doreen Lawrence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, commented that the errors made by Sussex Police demonstrated that "institutional racism was alive and well in Britain today". The family continued to campaign for justice, supported by local Members of Parliament Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) and Des Turner (Brighton Kemptown). Bottomley supported the Justice for Jay campaign and Turner tabled an early day motion in 2007. In  October 2010, an inquest was held after pressure from Abatan's family. The coroner recorded a verdict of unlawful killing, saying that Abatan had been assaulted with two punches to the face in a fight which was "entirely unprovoked and entirely unexplained". The head of the Sussex Criminal Investigation Department told the inquest that the police had interviewed 750 people, including 47 out of a total of 49 visitors to the Ocean Rooms who had been identified from CCTV footage. It was revealed in 2014 that a serving police officer had been drinking at Ocean Rooms with the two men  who were charged with manslaughter, a fact which had not been previously disclosed; Michael Abatan said that he no longer trusted the police. In response, Sussex Police stated there was no evidence that a police officer had been involved in the attack and that the investigation had been closed in 2013. In 2020, Jay Abatan was remembered at a Black Lives Matter march in Brighton and Sussex Police offered a reward of £10,000 for any new information relating to the case. The family of Jay Abatan held a vigil outside Brighton police station on 29 January 2022. Killing of