• PC Nicholas Williams’ testimony was used in a prosecution attempt of an anti-racist campaigner, and is similar to other cases where activists were convicted.
• voice.wales has seen the testimony of the South Wales Police officer who revealed that he used to serve for the infamous Apartheid-era South African Defence Force, which had a whites-only conscription policy and helped maintain white rule.
• PC Williams was stationed in front of Cardiff Bay police station during a January 2021 protest responding to the death of Mohamud Hassan, a black man from Roath who died after police contact.
Image: Illustration by Veronika Merkova
A South Wales Police officer whose testimony was used in the attempted prosecution of an anti racist protester had previously served in a pro-Apartheid milltary force integral in maintaining white rule in South Africa, voice.wales can reveal.
In the trial, which was held in Cardiff in July, an individual who had protested outside Cardiff Bay Police Station on 14th January 2021 was accused of shining a torch on cops and thereby obstructing an officer in their duties.
voice.wales has seen court documents that attest, in PC Nicholas Williams’ own words, that he was a soldier for the South African Defence Force (SADF), an army that maintained a whites-only conscription policy until it was abolished post-Apartheid. Whilst Black soliders were allowed to serve in the SADF, the force maintained a strict whites only policy for conscripts and officers to maintain white dominance within the fighting force.
The written testimony of PC Williams was used in an effort to prosecute the protester after he had attended the event held over the death of Mohamud Hassan, the young Black man who died shortly after telling witnesses he had been assaulted by South Wales Police.
The activist in question was found not guilty after he successfully fought his case, but others were convicted under similar charges in separate trials held months after the protests in question.
South Wales Police confirmed to voice.wales that PC Williams’ prior service with the SADF was known to his superiors, saying in a statement that “Previous service with the Armed Forces of a Commonwealth country would not automatically prevent a potential recruit from joining South Wales Police.”
A spokesperson for Black Lives Matter Cardiff and Vale said that the revelations raised serious questions about the policing operation around the protests and court action which followed.
“The fact that this person was admitted into SWP leads to serious questions around their recruitment policy, and even further questions as to the rest of their police force,” BLM Cardiff and Vale said.
Asked by voice.wales what the entrance requirements of becoming a cop in south Wales were, and whether an officer who had been a part of a military force that backed up the South African Apartheid regime should be policing an anti-racist protest, South Wales Police said it “utilises thorough vetting procedures when recruiting police officers and staff.”
The targeting of anti-racist protesters has been condemend by Black Lives Matter Cardiff and Vale and others as a politcally motivated attack against people who took to the streets against the police following the death of Mohamud Hassan.
In the months after the protests, one activist described being dragged out of their bed by police and put in a van after they were accused of shining a torch at officer’s faces. In another incident, a mother described how several police vans turned up at a her house in search of her teenage children, after one was said to have shone a torch whilst at police and accused of using an offensive term towards the police.
The cases have received very little media or political attention, but these fresh revelations raise more questions about South Wales Police’s response to the Mohamud Hassan protests.
The testimony of PC Williams was used in an effort to prosecute one of anti-racist protesters, detailing the anger amongst the grieving crowd of demonstrators seeking justice.
PC Williams, who was part of the operation outside Cardiff Bay police station on 14 January, also complained in the testimony that he was subjected to anti-white racial abuse by the protesters.
His written testimony was supplied to the court but he did not attend to give oral evidence when the case was heard at Cardiff Magistrates Court in July.
Further issues arose however with the oral testimony given by another officer during the trial to support the accusation of obstruction via torch light.
When questioned if he had been to an optician, after the anonymous officer said that he feared the light exposure had permanently damaged his eyesight, he admitted he had not.
In a similar case, a 19 year old was convicted of obstructing police and fined £159 after he pleaded guilty to shining a phone torch in the direction of the officer.
In that trial, a cop referred to as PC Williams accused the young man of shining a torch light on his face at a protest, resulting in the fine which was to be deducted from the protestor’s Universal Credit payments.
voice.wales has tried to investigate whether this is the same officer but the SWP press office has refused to confirm or deny this.
The Apartheid government in South Africa was one of world’s most notoriously racist and brutal regimes, where daily violence against the majority Black population was administered by the state in order to maintain White rule.
The regime eventually fell after a global anti Apartheid campaign and the actions of the Black population in South Africa, but its horrors will never be forgotten.
Reacting to the revelations about PC Wilson, BLM Cardiff and Vale said: “An officer in South Wales Police previously being a soldier for Apartheid-era SADF comes as little surprise to us, considering SWP’s own shameful history of brutalising Welsh anti-Apartheid activists.”
In 1969, police in South Wales stood accused of viciously beating anti-Apartheid demonstrators in Swansea.
Apartheid South Africa’s national rugby team, the Springboks, had arrived in the UK to complete a tour of matches against local teams, but when they arrived in Swansea to play they faced severe opposition from anti-racist locals.
Activists who were present at the demonstration have attested to the aggressive and violent repression inflicted by South Wales cops in an effort to keep the anti-Apartheid protest from disturbing the game.
Ex-MP and current member of the House of Lords Peter Hain said of the police brutality that day: “Swansea was the most violent fixture of the campaign, not by demonstrators, but by the police and the rugby stewards.”
“Police lumped protesters over iron railings and threw them to rugby stewards who handed them a beating. I had one friend who was left with a broken jaw and a young woman protester nearly lost an eye. It was horrendous.”
BLM Cardiff said they “will be keeping this information at the forefront of our investigation into the death of Mohamud Hassan.”
