Peter Tatchell urges Met Police Commissioner to "remedy flawed investigation" into death of Ed Cornes
Human rights and LGBTQ+ campaigner Peter Tatchell has written to Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, urging him to take decisive action to remedy the flawed investigation into the death of 19 year-old gay student Ed Cornes, who died after reportedly suffering 36 unexplained bodily injuries in 2021. Mr Tatchell has done so at the request of Ed Cornes’s mother, Miriam Blythe.
Mr Tatchell’s letter urges Sir Mark Rowley to ensure:
1. A copy of the full Critical Incident Review / Specialist Crime Review Group report is provided to Miriam Blythe (she has never been given a copy, only a summary).
2. A full copy to Miriam Blythe of the report recommended by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), highlighting 27 police failings (she has not been given a copy).
Graham Robson
3. The case is handed to another police force to reinvestigate.
4. The inquest is reopened, on the grounds that the police failed to produce vital evidence and the police testimony at the original inquest was allegedly inaccurate and biased in parts.
“The investigation into Cornes’s death on 13 October 2021 was followed by a catalogue of 27 police failings: friends not interviewed, evidence mishandled or lost, and homophobic assumptions made about Ed’s life and death,” said Mr Tatchell.
“This looks like a repeat of the police homophobia and investigatory errors in the cases of the four young gay men murdered by Stephen Port in 2014 and 2015. It appears to be a continuation of the institutional police homophobia highlighted in the Casey Report in 2023,” he added.
The Peter Tatchell Foundation is assisting Ed Cornes’s mother, Miriam Blythe, who remains devastated by her son’s death and continues to grieve while seeking answers and requesting full police transparency and accountability.
Miriam Blythe said: "My son, Ed Cornes, aged 19, was found dead in a London hotel room on 13 October 2021. Over four years later, I still have no satisfactory answers from the police.
"The review recommended by the HMIC found 27 failings by the Metropolitan Police, but I have never been allowed to see it.
"Prior to the inquest, the police failed to disclose all the evidence – only forwarding some of it to my solicitors three days after the inquest had closed. The police, in their testimony under oath on the stand, misled the coroner that Ed was a drug dealer and regularly slept with older men. The coroner then came to her conclusion after hearing the police's partial and untrue evidence. The audio recording of the inquest proves this.
"After 52 months of failure, I have no confidence in the Metropolitan Police. I want a copy of the complete Critical Incident Review / SCRG report and the inquiry citing the 27 police failings; plus an independent inquiry by a separate force and a new inquest."
Mr Tatchell added: “Ed’s family are not asking for special treatment — they are just asking for the truth. Over four years since Ed’s death, they still do not have confidence that a proper, full investigation was conducted.”
“Maintaining trust with LGBTQ+ communities requires confronting and remedying mistakes whenever they occur. The apparent unprofessional police investigation into Ed’s death is undermining that trust,” Mr Tatchell added.
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