Traveller Boy Killed by Teenagers in UK

07 February 2004

According to a November 28, 2003 report by the BBC, on the same day the Chester Crown Court found two 16-year-old males guilty of manslaughter in connection with the May 28, 2003 killing of Johnny Delaney, a 15-year-old Traveller. Johnny was kicked in the head and beaten to death by a group of teenagers who shouted racist comments at him and his friends in a playing field in Ellesmere Port, on the western coast of England, just north of Wales, according to The Guardian of June 10, 2003. The BBC reported that one of the boys who had kicked Johnny in the head with both feet claimed he deserved it because "he was only a ...Gypsy." The judge, who cleared the two boys of murder, did not believe there was a racial motive for the attack. Following the verdict, Detective Chief Inspector of the Cheshire Police Department was quoted by the BBC has having stated that the incident "was recorded as a racially-motivated incident on the first day of the inquiry under the definition given by the Lawrence Inquiry because of certain comments made at the scene of the incident. I believe that the incident still falls within the definition we would use for a racially-motivated incident [...]". Mr Patrick Delaney, Johnny's father, stated, "There is no justice here. They were kicking my son like a football. [...] As far as we're concerned it was a racist attack." According to The Guardian, three other youth were reportedly questioned but released without charge. At the time of the attack, one member of the Delaney family was quoted as having stated, "We can't think why anybody would attack him, except because he was a Traveller. No matter how much we have, we are still dirty Gypsy bastards." Further information on the situation of Travellers and Roma in the UK is available on the ERRC's Internet website at: www.errc.org. 

(BBC, The Guardian)