to the jury: that Peach was killed by "some political fanatic" in order to make him a martyr against the police. 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'". 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". In 2010 The Daily Telegraph considered that Burton had shown a "lack of sympathy ... towards Mr Peach's death". After the inquest Burton wrote a seven-page article entitled "The Blair Peach Inquest – the Unpublished Story", which he wanted to publish in the Coroners' Society annual report.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", and he thought that some of the Sikh witnesses "did not have experience of the English system" to give reliable evidence. 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". Subsequent events There were several calls for a public inquiry to examine the circumstances surrounding Peach's death and the role of the police; 79 MPs supported such a hearing, but the government refused to hold such a review. The Peach family also challenged the Metropolitan Police in court for the Cass report and supporting papers to be released. In February 1986 the Court of Appeal ruled that the police should release the statements and supporting papers, but not the report itself. The family also sought to claim damages from the Metropolitan Police and in June 1988, after eight years of trying, they were awarded £75,000. The political historian Mick Ryan observes that the Peach case is an example where "compensation is ... paid in tacit admission that a wrong had been committed". In April 1999 Paul Boateng, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, was the final minister who turned down the request for a public inquiry, saying the event had happened too long ago to be beneficial. Following correspondence with the Peach family at the time of the twentieth anniversary of Peach's death, Commander Ian Quinn of the Metropolitan Police's complaints bureau