Posts Tagged ‘gypsies’
PR Andrew Harper: monstering Travellers
Are you “afraid to challenge Traveller culture”? And if you are, what are you afraid of? Writing in the Times, Clare Foges looks at PC Andrew Harper’s killers.
Newly married Andrew Harper was killed by three youths. The facts are: he’d prevented the theft of a quad bike; his feet became entangled in a rope attached to the getaway car; the thieves dragged him behind them for over a mile. Mr Harper, 28, died from catastrophic injuries. Henry Long, 19, Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers admitted conspiracy to steal the bike. At the Old Bailey all three were acquitted of murder. All three were found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Foges has seen the picture of Albert Bowers sticking his tongue out at photographers after appearing at Reading Magistrates’ Court last September, and another of Bowers and Jessie Cole smiling as they left the same hearing. To the adult and sane it was a revolting spectacle.
She says they were “revelling in the attention”. Who were they showing off to? When media calls, media gets its picture. Did the presence of cameras change the mood? And will the media know frame a horrible crime in its terms, and with it take some ownership of the killers and Mr Harper? “When the verdict of manslaughter was handed down the public gallery, packed with their supporters, erupted in cheers,” says Foges. Whether justice has been done is not moot. The jury deliberated for almost two days.
Nasty people have been tried and convicted of a terrible crime. Mr Harper’s family are bereft. Their dignity is commendable. To cost another innocent human being their life is a dreadful, soul-splitting thing. We want the guilty to show remorse and regret. Maybe god will sort them out. Maybe they will realise what they did that night in August 2019 and weep. But nothing will wind the clock back. Nothing will save Andrew Harper. But Foges wants more:
Several reports on this case were careful to brush over certain details. They mentioned that Thames Valley police had raided the Four Houses Caravan Park – but not that the caravan park was a Traveller site, or that these three young men were from the Traveller community. Some may ask if this is relevant. Others may feel that to bring up the men’s background betrays an ugly old prejudice.
If you think their heritage is irrelevant, Foges says you’re wrong. If you suspect her of B, you are again wrong.
It is important to state that it is not communities that commit crimes but individuals. Those convicted are squarely Henry Long, Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, not thousands of innocent people who share their heritage. Tarring all Travellers with the brush of these men’s callousness is as unfair as tarring all Catholics for paedophile priests or all Muslims for terrorist attacks.
Yet…
‘Yet…” But what? She says theft is the Long family’s “trade”. Bowers left school at 11. “Their education was in petty crime.” The backstory is directing our thinking. Are the families of the guilty men also on trial? Is their culture in the dock?
The media has the power to transform the rare and local into a national issue. An innocent man is killed by criminals. But now it’s about all of us. Do we really suppose we could be next? Are we living in “fear” of Travellers? How much of the problem is real and now much is perceived?
Such problems do not solely beset Travellers but they are far more prevalent among Traveller communities.
Are they? We were talking about manslaughter. Is that a crime that can be especially linked to Traveller culture? Of course not. But before you can find any facts, Foges tells us that in the pursuit of equality and fairness “we have to end the squeamishness that prevents open talk about Travellers.”
This squeamishness is down to two fears, says Foges – and you might have missed the squirming when you hear the playground taunts ‘pikey’ and ‘gypo’, often issued from adult mouths. The “fears” are:
First, the fear of retribution…The second fear is that of being labelled racist… The fears hush most into silence, and the silence means the stand-off between Travellers and the rest of society continues uneasily.
We must talk about Travellers and crime in the same breath to save society and to save them.
Many feel disquieted to see the mobile homes rolling on to a local beauty spot, a portent too often of littering, mess, anti-social behaviour. Meanwhile those in Traveller communities are hardly “living their best lives”. Travellers die about ten years earlier than the rest of us. They have higher rates of chronic illness. Their suicide rates are six times higher…
You might argue that they choose to live like this, but the babies born into that life don’t.
From the brutal killing of an innocent man we are now talking about littering and spoiling the view. Every offence committed whilst being a Traveller is grouped. Every failure is part of a larger problem for decent society. And when you dig down in search of a solution, the righteous hit f8 on the keyboard and cry: we must do something to save the children. We hear it with calls to end circumcision, because the decent know that ending the Jewish covenant with god is the right thing to do. We hear it whenever the ‘control culture’ spots deviant behaviour. We must burst through the “culturally sensitive force-field” that “exists around Travellers” and save children “abandoned to a fate that should not be tolerated in 21st-century Britain”, says Foges.
Can we see figures for peadophilia among Travellers? Are the children of Travellers “abandoned”? Are their families less close knit, loyal and loving than for other cultures, tribes and religions? And then Foges outlines her plan to save these others: Travellers should stop travelling.
We need a new contract with Travellers. Instead of transience and lives lived in the shadows we must do more to encourage permanence and lives lived in contact with wider society – especially the education system. To achieve this the state must offer carrot as well as stick, not just extra police powers to move camps on but somewhere to go to. Local authorities should be obliged by law to find space for authorised sites. In return for pitches with proper sanitation and energy facilities, each site must have better contact points with the local authorities, particularly schools.
If Travellers are not allowed to travel, what are they? Haven’t they been settled out of existence?
Gypsies On Benefits And Proud: The Daily Star Flogs Channel 5’s Benefits Street For ‘Sponging’ Foreigners
THE Daily Star once told its readers to vote for the EDL. Todays its anti-foreigner message is cloaked in a front page about gloating, freeloading Romanians:
The Star’s (prop. Richard Desmond) headline is linked to a Channel 5 (prop. Richard Desmond) documentary. The paper tells us:
TV documentary exposes how gypsies are happy to exploit British benefit system
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Posted: 3rd, April 2014 | In: Reviews, TV & Radio | Comments (3)
Dublin Blonde Is A Gypsy: Media Gutted As Persecuted Roma Proved Innocent
THE blonde child taken from her darker parents and swabbed does have the same DNA as her parents. Yeah. The gypsies never did steal the blonde.
A member of the public called the Child Protection Unit at Tallaght Garda Station saying the blonde just didn’t fit with those gypsies. So. The police took the child away from her family. They did a test on her. They tested her parents. And it turns out that after the State kidnapping and medical experiments the gypsies are innocent.
What now for the tabloids?
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Let’s Get The Gypsies: The Big Fat Darkies Are Stealing Blonde Children In America, Greece, Ireland And Your Town
ANY gypsy woman who has cheated on her husband with a blonde man had best watch out. And blonde gypsies should just run. The powers that be are eyeing non-Aryans with a suspicious eye. The Mirror and Express lead with news of another blonde child seized from a Roma gypsy camp, this one in Dublin, Ireland.
The child has blonde hair and blue eyes. This not that she not only makes the front pages but has been removed from her darker haired and skinned ‘parents’. This echoes the news of Maria, the blonde removed by Greek police from gypsies.
This Irish child will have DNA tests to establish her identity and links to her family. No arrests have been made. But the child is in the care of the Irish state. What could go wrong?
The Times adds:
The couple she was living with told police their “daughter” was born at Dublin’s Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital in April 2006, the Sunday World newspaper reported. However, the hospital had no record of the birth and the name and date of birth given by the parents is different to records with the register office.
A birth certificate was deemed to be inconclusive and a passport bore a picture of a baby and could not be matched to the seven-year-old. A consultant at another hospital told detectives it would be unusual for Roma parents to have a blonde-haired child.
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Posted: 23rd, October 2013 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comments (4)
Plague Of Gypsies And Travellers Runs Riot In Blackburn
GYPSIES and travellers get a worse press than Muslims, Israel and the rich. The Lancashire Telegraph delivers the loads headline:
GROUP of 40 travellers descended on Blackburn town centre yesterday afternoon.
Descended? Like Gods from above? Or like locusts, a plague? As for the news. Well, it’s huge:
Six camper vans parked in High Street outside the Lancashire Telegraph, despite parking restrictions.
You can see the reporter looking out his window and seeing the vans. Yippee! This stickler for parking enforcement doesn’t even have to leave the warmth of his office to create a non-story about a favourite target of hate.
The group then made their way to several town centre pubs.
What?!! The travellers supported the local businesses?! The filthy scum!
Staff at the Postal Order in Darwen Street refused to serve them after complaints.
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Posted: 29th, October 2010 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Scare Story Of The Day: 12 Million Roma Look To Settle In The UK
THE Romanians are coming. The Romanians are coming!!!! For years the Star and Express have been telling us the Romanians are coming. They never came. But now their abbreviated form – the Roma – are on their way.
As we learn in the Star:
“There are …fears thousands of Roma gipsies kicked out of France could head here. Up to 12 million are said to be looking to settle.”
Because what do gypsies love more than to settle, right, readers? Oh, and Time says there are 10 million gypsies living in the whole of Europe. And they are all massing to come to the UK – and breeding fast…
Gold Vending Machine Prizes: Gallery
SO inclusive is the new Germany that in those gold vending machines, they have placed something for everyone.
There are gold flakes for her. Gold buckles for him. And for the gypsies – oh, how they love the gypsies – they have gold the likes of which you have never seen:
Posted: 18th, June 2009 | In: Money, Photojournalism | Comment
Daily Express Publishes New Edition For Gypsies
THE EXPRESS sees gypsies.
While the Sun welcomes The Others with a Polish version of its paper, the Express has yet to equip its organ with this weeks lucky pin number, a guide to pick-pocketing and whatever else the marketing department assures us gypsies are fans of.
Right now opportunities are being missed. The Express bring news that “FAMILIES MUST SELL LAND FOR GYPSY CAMPSITES”.
The “land grab” is taking place on campsites, fields and – best of all – private gardens.
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Posted: 17th, November 2008 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Madeline McCann: Seeking Andrew Gosden, Not Denise Pipitone And Demonising Gypsies
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann
THE TIMES: “One year on, missing Andrew Gosden is still a blank space in family’s heart”
Andrew Godsen is missing. He ran away form home one year ago. He was 14. Watch the parents…
As with the parents of Madeleine McCann, the Gosdens are leading a life suspended. Unlike the McCanns, they have not done so in a blaze of global publicity and suspicion. Mr Gosden said that he and his wife felt “deeply, deeply sorry” for Gerry and Kate McCann and suspected that the two families “have an awful lot in common”, in all but one respect.
Andrew Godsen ran away. Did Madeleine McCann?
“You get a lot of press if your child is little, blonde and female, but it hurts just as much when you’re missing a teenage son.”
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Posted: 13th, September 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (306)
