We record below incidents of racial violence and harassment that have taken place in the first few months of 2006 and note the results of court proceedings against perpetrators of attacks that took place after 7 July 2005.

• 3 March 2006: BBC News reports that Greg Louden, a Scottish police officer, appears in a Glasgow court to answer charges of carrying out a racially aggravated breach of the peace and shouting sectarian abuse at a Rangers football match on 22 February. (BBC News 3.3.06)
• 28 February 2006: Norwich Evening News reports that David Setterfield is given a four-year ASBO for racially abusing Norwich petrol station employee Asanka de Silva. (Norwich Evening News 1.3.06)
• 26 February 2006: This is Bristol reports that Pakistani student Shahbaz Khan is left with a perforated eardrum, fractured cheek bone and a blood clot in his head after being attacked by three white men in Bristol. Police are treating the attack as racially motivated. (This Is Bristol 3.3.06)
• 24 February 2006: Sutton Guardian reports that an employee of the Surma Tandoori in Sutton is threatened with a claw hammer and racially abused by a White teenager outside the restaurant at 9.45pm. (Sutton Guardian 27.2.06)
• 23 February 2006: BBC News reports that two petrol bombs are thrown into the home of a Filipino family living in Dundonald, Northern Ireland in the early hours of the morning. The telephone line to the house is cut and a racist note is left. The police are looking for three suspects. The family says they will probably move back to the Philippines. (BBC News 23.2.06 and BBC News 24.2.06)
• 23 February 2006: South London Press reports that a mosque on the Old Kent Road, London is the target of a suspected arson attack at 5am. Several windows are broken and scorched. (South London Press 24.2.06)
• 23 February 2006: The Times reports that George Jackson is appearing in Burnley Magistrates’ Court accused of making racist gestures at footballer Paul Ince. He does not make a plea and is released on bail. (The Times 23 February 2006, p. 28)
• 19 February 2006: BBC News reports that over 500 Merseyside police staff have been reprimanded for sending racist, homophobic, sexist and pornographic material, with the maximum punishment being the docking of three days pay. The punishments are criticised by the National Black Police Association as ‘too light’. (BBC News 19.2.06)
• 19 February 2006: Sunday People reports that four racists throwing bricks and paving slabs smash windows at the Kohinoor restaurant in Sudbury, Suffolk, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage. (Sunday People 19.2.06)
• 18 February 2006: Manchester Evening News reports that Olympic boxer Amir Khan leaves his younger brother’s boxing match at Everton Park Sports Centre early after some of the crowd start threatening and racially abusing him. (Manchester Evening News 27.2.06)
• 16 February 2006: Christine Mitchelson, a 53-year-old nurse, is struck off the nursing register after being found guilty of twelve allegations of misconduct, including one of making racist remarks to Filipina nurses. (Guardian 16.2.06)
• 11 February 2006: Mark Johnson, 36, is stabbed through the temple with a screwdriver in a suspected racist attack in Eccles, Manchester. During the attack, in which he and his family are racially abused, he loses the hearing in one ear and permanent facial damage. Police, who are treating the attack as racially motivated, have also taken the unusual step of naming 24-year-old Lee Robert Platt as their main suspect. (BBC News 20.2.06)
• 3 February 2006: Liverpool Daily Post reports that Councillor Christine O’Hare is under investigation for allegedly sending a racist email from her work computer. The councillor is married to another councillor who represents the ward where Black student Anthony Walker lived. An internal investigation is being conducted by the Labour Party. (Liverpool Daily Post 3.2.06)
• 3 February 2006: The Whitehaven News reports that patient David Gearing racially abused and attacked a doctor at West Cumberland hospital. He is later sentenced to 28 days in prison for the attack. (Whitehaven News 9.2.06)
• 31 January 2006: BBC News reports that 32-year-old Derek Potts who pleaded guilty to distributing writing containing the threat of racially aggravated violence and causing alarm and distress. The court is told he posted thirty-six letters to the Lazeez takeaway in Currock, Carlisle, beginning his campaign in August 2005; he is sentenced to nine months in prison. (BBC News 31.1.06)
• 28 January 2006: South Wales Echo reports that 24-year-old Shamal Chowdhury is given a 12-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, a three year driving ban and costs of £5,000 after retaliating against racial abuse by passengers in his cab. One suffered serious injuries to his knee after Chowdhury drove his cab over his legs. (South Wales Echo 28.1.06)
• 27 January 2006: Pendle Today reports from a local meeting where an Asian woman living in Colne tells that she and her family have been targeted by racists for the last two years, being racially abused and having windows on her car and home broken. She also accuses the police of failing to act and take their complaints seriously, including one incident where an alleged assailant was handed over to police but was back out on the street a few hours later. At the same meeting police warn a local resident about his conduct after he calls local taxi drivers ‘Pa**s’. (Pendle Today 27.1.06)
• 27 January 2006: The Scotsman reports that senor BNP members have been filmed making Nazi salutes at a camp in the Scottish highlands where a cross was also burned. The footage is to be shown in a documentary on far-right music. (The Scotsman 27.1.06)
• 25 January 2006: Naveed Qureshi in Dumbarton has racist graffiti daubed on his home, windows are smashed and attempts are made to set the property alight. Two men, 18 and 33, appear before Dumbarton Sheriff Court facing charges of acting in a racially aggravated manner and attempted murder. (Scotland Today 26.1.06)
• 25 January 2006: Evening Standard reports that Donal MacIntyre, an investigative journalist who made a TV programme on football hooligans, has his car, which is parked on Chiswick High Street, London scrawled with C18 graffiti. (Evening Standard 26.2.06)
• 25 January 2006: Ex-soldier Stephen Wynne, 28, is sentenced to six years in prison for trying to set alight a mosque in Birkenhead in revenge for the for the 7 July bombings; the Imam at the mosque was rescued by fire-fighters after the attack soon after the London bombings. This sentence is to run concurrent with a 21-year sentence for murdering a young prostitute, Chantal Taylor, in March 2004, also in Birkenhead. (BBC News 25.1.06)
• 23 and 25 January 2006: A house in Doncaster is sprayed with racist graffiti and has its windows smashed on two separate occasions. (South Yorkshire Police press release, 24 February 2006)
• 19 January 2006: Carl Francis Bright, 19, pleads guilty to racially aggravated harassment, after an incident on 6 January in Caterham. The court was told that Bright, who was very drunk, had flagged down a police car and claimed that he had been attacked by a Black man. When the officer had refused to take him seriously he had then chased a Black man walking down the road, racially abused and assaulted him. Bright was fined £250 and ordered to pay £50 costs. (IC Surrey Online 26.1.06)
• 18 January 2006: Darren Paul Eastham, 43, of Coventry admits sending a racist email to the Birmingham based Islamic Relief Organisation, three weeks after the London bombings, on 27 July. He is fined £500 and ordered to pay £55 costs. (BBC News 18.1.06)
• 17 January 2006: Anthea Mizzi, 43, is found guilty of ABH, possession of a stun gun and two cans of pepper spray. Her 20-year-old son, Matthew, is also found guilty of six charges of possessing weapons. Mizzi was found to have stunned her neighbour, Michaela Green, with a stun gun following a row over a St George’s day flag. Green was hurt after being accused by the Mizzis of removing a St George’s day flag from outside their flats. The court was also told that Mizzi and her son were both BNP members and were subject to ASBOs. (IC South London 17.1.06)
• 14 January 2006: Two Asian taxi drivers, in separate incidents in Station Road, Bamber Bridge, are targeted by a gang of youths. In the first, stones are thrown at the car and the driver is racially abused; in the second, a taxi surrounded and the driver is racially abused and his car damaged. (Leyland Today 26.1.06)
• 14 January 2006: An 11-year-old Asian boy is punched twice, knocked to the ground and has shampoo squirted in his eyes by five young boys aged 11 or 12 at the Moor Park swimming baths in Blackpool. Police are treating the attack as racially aggravated. (Blackpool Today, 18.1.06).
• 10 January 2006: An 11-year-old boy who admits racially aggravated harassment and assault of a 34-year-old Nigerian student, is placed on a 10-month-referrral order and is ordered to pay £50 compensation and £20 costs. The young boy abused the female student over a period of three months, starting in September 2005 in Llandudno. (Daily Post 11.1.06)
• 10 January 2006: A 22-year-old woman walking down the High Street in Hitchin is racially abused by a White man with long hair. (Herts Comet 12.1.06)
• 10 January 2006: 13-year-old Khristian Kewin is served with a five year ASBO banning him from using threatening violent or abusive behaviour or language; damaging or threatening to damage property; and engaging in any behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, in Maryport, Derwent & Solway. The young boy had been accused of verbal and racial abuse and of damaging cars and property. (Times & Star 13.1.06)
• 10 January 2006: Black nurse, Allison Antoine, finds racist graffiti, a swastika, another Nazi symbol and the words ‘White power’, painted on the front of her house in Stiles, Antrim. She says she may be forced to leave the area as she is so scared, she also reports being racially abused, windows on her house smashed and her shed being burnt down. The attack has been blamed on Loyalists in the area. (UTV 10.1.06)
• 3 January 2006: Police begin an investigation into an alleged racist attack between two groups of schoolgirls on a bus travelling through Wandsworth after one girl is racially abused and is punched in the face and shoulder. (Wandsworth Guardian 13.1.06)
• 15 December 2005: Nick Collingridge, the head of Clayton-le-Moors neighbourhood management board, resigns from the board after receiving a police caution for a racially aggravated public order offence for singing a song at a Christmas party that he would rather be Irish than Black. (Lancashire Evening Telegraph15.12.05)
• 15 December 2005: 39-year-old James Smyth appears in Blackfriars Crown Court charged with racially aggravated assault against an Asian takeaway driver, Shakir Ali, on 19 July 2005. (News Shopper 28.12.05)

Related links

National Civil Rights Movement

Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust

The Monitoring Group