Within a day of Peach's death, Commander John Cass of the Metropolitan Police's Complaints

Investigation Bureau began an investigation of the events[67] and statements were taken from members
of the SPG that day.[68][69] Sir David McNee, then the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, also
undertook his own eight-day review of the demonstrations, although he did not include Peach's death as
part of his analysis.[70]

The inquest opened on 26 April 1979; John Burton, the coroner for West London, oversaw the
proceedings. On the opening day he allowed Peach's family to have a second post-mortem examination
undertaken by an independent pathologist; the inquest was then adjourned for a month.[71] It
reconvened on 25 May 1979 and was again adjourned after Cass appeared as a witness and said that his
investigation would take between two and three months more. By that time, he and his team had
interviewed 400 people. Burton said that the inquiry would reconvene after Sir Tony Hetherington, the
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), had been given the report.[72][73]

Peach's coffin being carried by Sikhs, as part of a multiracial procession

Part of the cortège of Peach's funeral, 13 June 1979

Despite statements by the police and the incumbent government that the trouble at Southall was caused
by outsiders to the area, only 2 of the 342 charged were non-residents of Southall.[74] Instead of holding
the trials locally, they were held 25 miles (40 km) away in Barnet.[f] Lalith de Kauwe, writing for Bulletin
—the publication of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers—writes that while initially 90 per cent of
the defendants were found guilty, this dropped to 70 per cent once the press began to publicise the
matter.[75]

On 12 June 1979 Peach's body was laid out at the Dominion Cinema in Southall; 8,000 people filed past
it.[76] The following day he was buried at East London Cemetery, where between 5,000 and 10,000
people were in attendance.[77][g] Three days after the funeral, McNee defended the actions of the SPG
and told a black reporter "I understand the concern of your people. But if you keep off the streets of
London and behave yourselves you won't have the SPG to worry about."[79]

Cass investigation

One member of SPG Unit 1-1 was questioned by Cass's team in early June 1979 after the forensic report
stated that Peach was probably not killed by a police truncheon, but by a lead-filled cosh or pipe. A
search of the unit's lockers found 26 weapons—including police truncheons—many of which were
unauthorised, including coshes and knives, as well as sets of keys and a stolen driving licence.[80][81]
[82][h] Cass's team raided the home of PC Grenville Bint, where weapons and Nazi memorabilia were
found. Bint stated he collected the memorabilia as a hobby.[82]
During his investigation Cass held several identification parades, including for Officer F, Officer G and
Officer I.[83][i] These were identified by the barrister and historian David Renton from the inquest as PCs
Raymond White, James Scottow and Anthony Richardson, respectively.[54] No witness managed to
identify the man they saw hitting Peach.[83][84] It later transpired that one officer present at the riots
shaved off the moustache which he had that day, while Inspector Murray grew a beard and refused to
take part in the identity parades. Many of the uniforms that the police wore that day had been dry-
cleaned before they were inspected.[85][86] Cass ran up against misleading stories from the members of
Unit 1-1 and in his report he stated "The attitude and untruthfulness of some of the officers involved is a
contributory factor."[87] He continued "The action of these officers clearly obstructed the police officers
carrying out their duty of investigating this serious matter."[88] Cass decided that he had identified the
individual whom he considered most likely to have hit Peach, but that there was "no evidence of a
conclusive nature":[89]

The officers in that carrier after disembarking, who could have assaulted Clement Blair PEACH were
Officer E, Officer H, Officer G, Officer I, Officer J and Officer F, and I give them in that order of possibility.
[90]

Renton identified these officers as Murray, Bint, Scottow, Richardson, Freestone and White, respectively.
[54] Cass's report was accepted by the police as being accurate, and in his 1983 autobiography McNee
wrote "when all the evidence was assembled it showed that Blair Peach had died from a blow to his
skull. The evidence pointed to the fact that the blow had been struck by a police officer."[91]

Coroner's inquest

Cass finished the investigation in February 1980; 30 investigators had worked for 31,000 man-hours
during his enquiries.[92] He finished his initial report on 12 July 1979,[64] which was sent to the DPP,
who, while praising the work he had done, stated that "there was insufficient evidence to justify a
prosecution".[93] The inquest reopened a week later. Both Burton and the lawyers representing the
Metropolitan Police were given copies of Cass's report, but refused to provide copies to the lawyers
representing the Peach family or those representing the Anti-Nazi League. Burton used Cass's report to
determine which witnesses to call and which to ignore. Michael Dummett, Wykeham Professor of Logic
at Oxford University, examining the case for the National Council for Civil Liberties, observes that as only
the coroner and police lawyers had copies of the report, "it was impossible for anyone ... [else] to obtain
a complete picture of the evidence".[94] The question of whether the family were allowed to view the
reports was taken to a Divisional Court, who ruled that as the report was the property of the police, they
had the right to withhold it.[94]

Legal counsel for the Peach family requested that the inquest be held in front of a jury, which Burton
rejected; the inquest was again adjourned.[95] The High Court rejected a challenge to overturn Burton's
decision,[96] which then went to the Court of Appeal where Lord Denning stated that the inquest should
reconvene in front of a jury.[97][98]

In early 1980 sections of the Cass report were published in The Leveller (January 1980) and The Sunday
Times (March 1980). Details included in both publications were the names of Murray, White, Freestone,
Richardson and Scottow.[99] The latter publication indicated that the decision by the DPP not to
prosecute the policemen "left the investigating officers in the invidious position of appearing party to a
cover-up, should their report ever become public".[100] In April 1980—the one-year anniversary of
Peach's death—members of the group "Friends of Blair Peach Committee" picketed outside police
stations holding posters that named the six members of SPG Unit 1-1 and the words "Wanted for the
murder of Blair Peach".[101]

The inquest reconvened on 28 April 1980 and was expected to last several weeks.[102] Both pathologists
—David Bowen for the coroner and Keith Mant acting for the family—came to the same conclusions:
that death was from a single blow, not a police truncheon, but a "rubber 'cosh' or hosepipe filled with
lead shot, or some like weapon".[94] Both stated that Peach had a thin skull, but not, as Mant observed,
"pathologically thin".[94] He described the action that caused the injury as "a very severe, single blow".
[94]

The inquest closed on 27 May 1980 during which time 83 witnesses were called.[103] A verdict of death
by misadventure was given.[104] The criminologists Phil Scraton and Paul Gordon consider that, given
the conclusions of the Cass report, unlawful killing would have been a more appropriate verdict.[105] In
its leader the following day, The Times said that "the Peach inquest failed to provide a clear and
believable explanation of the events in question"; it also stated that Peach's death should continue to be
investigated.[106]

The National Council for Civil Liberties expressed concern at the way Burton conducted the inquest. The
organisation felt uneasy with a theory that he put to the jury: that Peach was killed by "some political
fanatic" in order to make him a martyr against the police.[107][108] During the course of the inquest,
Burton wrote to ministers to say that the question of whether Peach was killed by a police officer was a
"political 'fabrication'".[109] He also wrote to the home secretary, lord chancellor and attorney general,
claiming that there was a conspiracy to spread false information about Peach's death; he accused several
media outlets, including the BBC, of producing what he described as "biased propaganda".[109] In 2010
The Daily Telegraph considered that Burton had shown a "lack of sympathy ... towards Mr Peach's
death".[110]

After the inquest Burton wrote a seven-page article entitled "The Blair Peach Inquest – the Unpublished
Story", which he wanted to publish in the Coroners' Society annual report. In the article, he said that
some civilian witnesses lied and were "totally politically committed to the Socialist Workers Party",[109]
and he thought that some of the Sikh witnesses "did not have experience of the English system" to give
reliable evidence.[54] He was persuaded not to publish the account by civil servants, who considered
that the report would "discredit the impartiality of coroners in general and Dr Burton in particular".[109]