Zayna Iman’s memory of her 40 hours in police custody comes back in flashes. What she does remember has haunted her for nearly three years.
The 39-year-old believes she was drugged and raped in her cell before being left naked and distressed on the floor, cowering under a blanket and so disorientated she urinated on herself.
Her quest for answers over what happened at Pendleton police station is subject of an IOPC investigation that has so far raised only more questions.
This is despite Zayna being handed dozens of pages of documents and police CCTV containing hour upon hour of distressing film - but, crucially, two are still missing.
Greater Manchester Police had initially told her that all cell footage had been reviewed, and there was no evidence to support her rape allegations.
Then the force told her several hours had been ‘corrupted’ and were not recoverable.
The IOPC began investigating and soon discovered the film ‘was never downloaded’, that GMP gave her false information and denied she had been strip-searched. It is now examining why.
They initially said that the had 4 discs, and one “corrupted,” which just so happened to lose the most important 2 hrs out of the 40. Any raid except 0 would survive a loss of one disc, and 0 would lose all data, not just 5% of it. This sounds more like a JBOD config than RAID, which would be very stupid setup for data retention.
The oversight committee found that the “corruption” excuse was a lie, and instead that the person who “complied” with the requirement to hand over video opted to not download the most important 2hrs that would prove definitely either way if she was drugged and raped.
After being stonewalled and lied to by the precient for 2.5 years, she went to the press and suddenly the oversight committee started to do its job. After all the time that has passed, the data has likely been overwritten normally for too long to recover it.
The cops got exactly what they wanted. Some of them drugged and raped her, then the others covered it up by intentionally failing to do their jobs, lying about it over and over again for years, and letting time take its course. The oversight committee helped out by ignoring her complaint until the government and press forced it to act, and now is slow rolling the investigation to make sure that nothing happens to the rapist cops and their enablers.
As always, even in the UK, ACAB.