Shotgun attack on Travellers in England
15 August 2001
A gunman attacked a Romani Travellers' encampment in Bramdean, near Winchester in southern England, with a shotgun in the early morning of June 18, 2001, according to an article in the Southampton-based newspaper, Southern Daily Echo of June 19, 2001. No one was injured in the attack, but two vehicles were hit and damaged by pellets from two cartridges. This was the second such attack on Bramdean Common in just over twelve months. In February 2000, two caravans were sprayed with pellets from four shotgun cartridges as families slept inside. No one was injured during the earlier attack. The Common is a regular stopping site for Travellers and Roma each year, and on the morning of the attack there were eight caravans occupied by about thirty people on the site. The police have acknowledged the possibility of a racial motive in the attack; according to the Southern Daily Echo, Police Constable Nigel Harding of Arlesford Police Station commented that the attacker could be someone unhappy with having Gypsies in the village. The police are reportedly investigating links between the two attacks.
The attack was followed by an inciteful article by Mr Bob Muden, a borough councillor in Fareham, south of Winchester, published in the Southern Daily Echo on June 25, 2001. Mr Muden, in an article entitled "Dilemma over the Travellers", did not condemn the Bramdean attack, but condemned instead the Traveller lifestyle, stating "we are asked to put up with the same travellers year on year. They trespass on our open spaces, trash the area, leave their domestic filth behind and require us to pick up the residues of their business activities." Mr Muden noted the complete lack of permanent sites for Travellers in the area, but did not appear to recognise this lacuna as being the root cause of the problems. The article finished on a threatening note, stating, "no one wants these troublesome people on their doorstep. The great British public will only take so much of this clearly unfair nonsense and will eventually erupt. Beware the long hot summer nights and the vigilantes."
Danielle Gusmaroli and Martin McGlown, writing in the London newspaper The Evening Standard of June 5, 2001, used a similar tone to describe the setting up of camp by a group of mainly Irish Travellers on a school playing field in Northolt, northwest London. The article concentrated upon and gave vent to the "horrified" reactions of parents of children at the Willow Tree Primary School to the arrival of the seventy-caravan strong group, including the comment of one parent, that "Teachers have told the children that they may even have weapons." The newspaper also quoted another parent as saying, "You always hear rumours about travellers making trouble and I don't want my kids going near them." The media in Britain has featured repeated outbreaks of anti-Romani and anti-Traveller sentiment in recent years (see for example "Snapshots from around Europe", Roma Rights 1/2000, available at: www.errc.org).
(Patrin, Southern Daily Echo)
