Not all London’s tales of terrible history fit conveniently into the past, making it somehow more palatable.
Take the murder of Yvonne Fletcher for instance, the young London policewoman, whose life was cruelly taken from her in 1984 when a shot rang out by an unknown gunman from the Libyan Embassy in peaceful St James’s Square.
Yvonne had been deployed with other police officers to monitor a demonstration that was taking place outside the embassy, protesting against the rule of Libyan leader Muanmar Gaddafi and his policy of targeting and killing exiled opponents of his regime.
During the peaceful demonstration, two gunmen opened fire from the first floor of the embassy with machine guns, killing Fletcher and wounding eleven Libyan demonstrators.
The shooting and the death of Yvonne Fletcher, resulted in an eleven-day siege of the embassy at the end of which, those inside who had diplomatic immunity, were expelled from the country and the United Kingdom severed diplomatic relations with Libya.
Afterwards the film director Michael Winner wrote to The Times to suggest that a memorial be placed in St James’s Square to commemorate her. In 1984 he set up the Police Memorial Trust to erect memorials to honour British police officers killed in the line of duty
In 2021 the High Court of Justice in London determined that an ally of Gaddafi’s was jointly liable for the young policewoman’s murder, but to date, no one has ever been convicted of her murder.
