Apart from one witness who spotted someone fitting his description walking down the road a short while later, he was never seen alive again.The following morning, at about 6am, two of his friends were walking near the pub when they spotted him hanging by his belt from low roadside railings. He had been dead for some time and there were no obvious signs of a struggle or violence.His death devastated his family, coming so soon after that of his uncle Errol, 34, in a strikingly similar hanging in July 1999. The older man had been found suspended from a doorknob at a house he was looking after for a friend, after repeatedly complaining about racial harassment.The McGowans, convinced it could not be a suicide, criticised West Mercia Police’s treatment of the investigation and pressed them to look further into the matter. Jason McGowan had been trying to carry out his own inquiries when he, too, was discovered dead.Yet Jason’s inquest heard that it took the first senior investigating officer just 23 minutes to decide his death was a suicide.The next officer to take over the case, Detective Chief Inspector Ken Crane, who has now retired, insisted the matter had been thoroughly investigated.But the inquest heard claims that there had been a failure to search for potentially crucial forensic evidence in the early hours. Following a recommendation by Home Secretary at the time, Jack Straw, a second investigation was launched, with a team from the Metropolitan Police’s Racial and Violent Crimes Task Force acting as advisers.While the second investigation was praised for its thoroughness, its senior officer, Detective Superintendent Mel Shore, conceded a “central piece of the jigsaw” remained missing. They had hoped this second inquest would provide more answers..

The Labour Government has found itself at the centre of a storm over arms exports once again. This time to India where the dispute with neighbouring Pakistan over Kashmir region is threatening to turn into a nuclear exchange. The question many are asking is whether Jack Straw – on a peace mission to the region – will be under pressure to close the deal.To its credit, the Government has taken a lead in establishing arms control measures through the agreement of an EU Code of Conduct on exports, the publication of an annual report on weapons sales and a ban on production and export of landmines and torture equipment.The Export Control Bill, a response to the 1996 Scott report recommendations for new arms legislation, is going through Parliament. However, new policy initiatives have not been matched by control of the more controversial weapons sales. The most controversial arms exports licensed under the last Conservative government, such as machine guns and water cannon to Indonesia – used to suppress democracy demonstrations – and tanks to Nigeria after the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa, have not been repeated.

That has been welcomed by campaigners but the Government has faced a number of controversies, which show questionable exports are still being licensed. This all raises serious questions about the implementation of the EU Code of Conduct on arms exports.The code states exports will not be licensed if there is a risk that weapons could be used for “internal repression”. Upon coming to power in 1997, the Government was confronted with the decision of whether to allow the supply of 16 Hawk jets to Indonesia from a sale licensed under the previous administration.Despite repeated claims that Hawk aircraft had been used to intimidate the civilian population in East Timor, the Government did not revoke the contracts because it claimed it had received legal advice to the effect they could not be cancelled The legal advice has never been published. The Indonesian government eventually acknowledged the jets were used over East Timor in July 1999.The code also states licences will not be granted if they could affect the internal situation in the recipient country and “provoke or prolong armed conflicts”. In January 1998, Royal Ordnance, now part of BAE Systems, applied for an export licence to refurbish 30 large field guns in Morocco, which has been engaged in a conflict over the disputed territory of Western Sahara since 1975. It was initially turned down because it contravened the EU Code but BAE Systems appealed and, in July 1999, the licence was granted. The field guns are on the front line in the war zone.The EU code states exports will not be granted if they could be used for external aggression or to assert by force a territorial claim.