Last Sunday night at 9 pm I watched Two Daughters, the Stacey Dooley documentary about Mina Smallman’s horrific experience of her daughters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman being murdered two years ago. To compound the horrific crime, officers meant to be protecting the scene took pictures of her murdered daughters and shared them on whatsapp to 40 other people.
My friend and fellow Reclaim These Streets founder Ludo Orlando approached Mina over a year ago to reach out and see how we could serve her and the memory of her girls. Mina is a personal hero and the documentary was brutal but crucial viewing. The world needs to know what she and Chris, and Adam, Nicole’s partner, and all of thier loved ones were put through. The police refused to even search for the girls and Adam ended up actually finding them in Fryent Country Park.
Obviously IOPC found there was no racism, even though the records show references to Black Lives Matter instead of them being at a picnic and birthday party . Also— they would not have had an outdoor party with so few people if they were not following the lockdown rules that were broken by number 10.
Last year Reclaim These Streets worked with Mina to put on a vigil in Fryent Country Park to remember her girls. Victims who are women of colour rarely make the papers, and rarely recieve any news coverage. It was the least we could do; and an honour to help amplify Mina’s message about her daughters.
Stacey’s documentary crew filmed our preparation visit to Fryent Country Park and at the vigil that we held for Bibaa and Nicole last June on what would have been Nicole’s birthday.
Tomorrow, I will #MarchontheMet for 10 miles with the Women’s Equality Party. I will join other women as angry as I am. Details are here. https://www.womensequality.org.uk/march_on_met