Gypsies and Travellers targeted in wake of Brexit vote

Hate crimes committed against members of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) community have increased since the UK voted to leave the European Union, but they often go unreported, Catholic charities have said.

CSAN, the social action arm of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, submitted a report on 5 September to the Home Affairs Select Committee’s inquiry into hate crime, launched after the 23 June referendum. The report  detailed how incidents of hate crime against members of GRT communities are underreported due to a lack of confidence that reports will lead to effective action and a mistrust of both criminal justice agencies and the police.

The submission was based on evidence from the Irish Chaplaincy, the Catholic Association for Racial Justice and Catholic pastoral workers ministering to children in GRT communities. The charities reported an increase in racist incidents, particularly against the Roma community, since Brexit, and identified a lack of pressure to prosecute perpetrators of hate crimes, which they put down to negative stereotyping.

“Our experience has been that there is an unwillingness on the part of the police and the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] to regard anti-Gypsy and anti-Traveller discrimination as seriously as other forms of racism,” said Conn MacGabhann, manager of the Traveller Equality Project run by the Irish Chaplaincy, which provides support to vulnerable people in the Irish community in Britain.

CSAN said the Church had a central role to play in welcoming the GRT community in their dioceses, parishes and schools. “The moral test of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members: a healthy community can only be achieved if its members give special attention to those on the margins of society,” said Philip McCarthy, CSAN’s chief executive.

CSAN is giving its support to  #OperationReportHate, a social media campaign led by the Traveller Movement to raise awareness of hate crimes against the GRT communities. The National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Hate Crime, Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said: “I am delighted to support this important initiative. All forms of hate crime are unacceptable, and it is important that all communities feel comfortable in reporting hate crimes.”

The estimated 300,000 members of the GRT community are documented as Britain’s most disadvantaged ethnic group.

Meanwhile the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, has written to Cardinal Vincent Nichols and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, urging them to confront “xenophobia”. Last month, Arek Jozwik, a Polish man living in Essex died after he was attacked by a group of youths. Police are treating the death as a hate crime.