Police "Ignored" and "Failed" Bijan Ebrahimi

Iranian Bijan Ebrahimi complained to police for up to seven years before he was beaten to death and set on fire by his neighbors, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has found. 

The report reveals that Ebrahimi suffered racial abuse and death threats, and that police repeatedly ignored his pleas for help. 

Ebrahimi moved the UK in 2001, following his two sisters, who had moved to the country several years before. Two of his neighbors murdered him in July 2013.

“He thought that it was a better place for him to grow here,” his sister Manisha Moores, said. “He felt that he would gain something more than if he stayed there [in Iran].” Both of their parents had died, and Bijan suffered from a debilitating back condition. He decided to join his sisters, who had helped raise him, in Britain. 

But when he arrived in Bristol in the UK as a refugee, life continued to be difficult for him. He took on a series of demanding jobs, but his physical health continued to deteriorate and he was increasingly isolated, apart from the time that he spent with his sisters. While living in a hostel waiting for appropriate housing, he was physically attacked. He was eventually placed at Bristol's Capgrave Crescent estate, where he faced years of discrimination, intimidation and physical abuse. 

Batook Pandya, director of Stand Against Racism and Inequality (SARI), the Bristol-based hate crime charity that has dealt with over 5,000 cases and worked with Ebrahimi for years, called Ebrahimi's murder the worst hate crime he had seen in 23 years of work at the organization.

On Februrary 9, 2016, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) announced that four police officers who dealt with events leading up to the death of Iranian national Bijan Ebrahimi were guilty of wrongdoing and negligence. Police Constables Kevin Duffy, Helen Harris and Leanne Winter and Police Community Support Officer Andrew Passmore faced trial on charges of misconduct. In May 2016, Helen Harris and Leanne Winter were sacked for misconduct in the case. 

Ebrahimi's sisters have described the IPCC report as "devastating."

When Iranian national Bijan Ebrahimi was murdered in Bristol in July 2013, IranWire commissioned Liana Aghajanian to cover the case. Her article is the product of weeks of in-depth reportage, with insights from dozens of interviews spanning Ebrahimi’s family, Bristol hate crime activists, local officials and academics in a quest to understand the complex array of factors that ultimately led to his death. 

Read Murder in Bristol: part one, part two, part three, part four.

With additional reporting from Giles Crosse.