Dale Farm et al

[AnneWiddecomesArse]

A continuation...

you don't think the criminals are the problem, then, math?

FGS I've only just had a look at that website wholly I am still trying to make sense of all the information on it and some of it has embarrassed me by my ignorance. I never claimed to have made a study of this subject.

I'm sorry if I don't know all there is in the world about all the different communities.
To be fair I never said I did. I never said I was an expert. Weird how I have to be an expert to voice a differing opinion. Weird how my life is called into question when I voice a differing opinion but no one else's experiences are. I don't rudely question how much of what was said earlier on in the thread was real and what was hearsay passed as reality.

I said I didn't think most people knew the difference between Roma and Travellers and I thought that gypsy was a term used by most people to mean either/or.
I have seen that by reading a website now that there are masses of differing opinions but that only Roma and Travellers are protected terms under UK law.

But this doesn't change my experience of Irish Travellers. Also most travellers have never been to Ireland and yet have an accent that would be considered Irish. I thought that many of those claiming to be Roma were simply travellers who thought they'd get a better trot from saying they were Roma rather than Traveller and I think there is some of that.
If this is based on the traveller accent surely travellers marry Roma and vice versa..I said I don't know and I don't
I don't know how I have offended you or where you perceive me to be going wrong
Please enlighten me.

My third experience of naughty people:
Again I was bf. I heard them about 2am. I heard the van pull up outside (it was a no thru' road, the only traffic was farm vehicles; and it was only 6am dairy ).
I heard the van unload.
I heard them putting up ladders at my front windows and using tools to force the locks.
I 'phoned the police. I repeatedly 'phoned 999.
They went round the back and did the same.
They went round the side (the room I was in) and the side that my new alarm was on. I peeped out the curtains to see if it was flashing (direct police alert) and came face to face with him; the bloke on the ladder trying to break into my house.

I can't remember exactly what I said. Something about opening the window and breaking his back (his ladder was propped on the window opening) . I had an antique soda siphon in my hand and I remember being fucking furious. Then I opened the window and took a swipe. And then he fell off the ladder.

I was advised by the police (2 days later), that I could be charged with assault. They actually recorded my details on the basis of a potential charge.

Criminals are always a problem PigletJohn, and that is why there are police. If criminals are committing crimes and the police are not coming when called and then in effect telling a taxpayer that they are not going to try to arrest the criminals then you have a problem that involves the police attitudes too.

wholly I think you are being a little unreasonable and I don't understand why

We sold horses and raced pacers and trotters. We had loads of dealings with the travellers and we went to Appleby Fair each year. So I never had dealings with a settlement in GB.

god wholly

please try to understand my posts, just a little

like AWA in NI when your house/car etc is being robbed by paramilitaries in an estate it is very often not seen as worth your while to report it to the police
This is because if the police were to arrest the people carrying out the crime you would very likely be put out of your house by others in the organisation, in much the same way as AWA was describing, for offering them up to the law

AWA you must have been completely terrified!!
did you ever make a complaint about the police behaviour?

what happened re the terrorising thefts etc? Is it still going on?

mathanxiety Tue 06-Sep-11 00:38:58
Your trouble there, AWA, seems to be police who are not really doing their job as they are too fwightened.

No Math. The problem is the criminals.

The criminals have done exactly what you would expect them to do.

It is the police who have let you down. Police who discourage you from identifying suspects in a robbery are making it clear to you that the law is powerless or unwilling (same thing really) to protect you.

Police and courts who make it easy for rapists to escape without charges or convictions being brought are a huge part of the continuing problem of rape in Britain. The message to would be rapists is that they have a very good chance of getting away with it. The conviction rate is somewhere under 10% of cases actually prosecuted. The number of cases reported is estimated to be well under 10% of actual rapes. The number of cases going all the way to prosecution is a small percentage of those reported. When victims of crime feel actively discouraged from reporting, crime goes on unchallenged.

The police and the courts and the whose criminal justice apparatus are there because human nature is what it is. The whole system is sadly as strong as its weakest link.

Travellers retain their traveller accent, even when they've lived in England for generations, because they resist integration. It is difficult to imagine people who are generally so very fair being able to pass themselves off as Roma, and it is not even clear why they would want to, since the latest influx of Roma has not exactly got a great reputation.

But I doubt whether people who had not lived along side travellers would recognise them. They could easily pass themselves off as Irish, if they so chose. So discrimination against them must be based on personal experience. As far as planning permission goes, I think the problem is that they are demanding discrimination, in their favour.

I was also scared to involve the police, when I lived alongside naughty people. There were too many of them, and they lived all around me. Our being intimidated was not the fault of the police.

I am pondering MNHQ's apparent policy of deleting all negative experiences with a particular group of people.

How far does this go? Using the analogy of the old culture of the deep South in the US - white Southerners felt entitled to enslave black Southerners. I am glad they were not enabled to preserve that culture of entitlement.

With travellers, the men feel entitled to treat women as slaves. And the media types think that we are obliged to preserve this culture by discriminating in their favour.

If we can't even discuss problematic behaviour in a particular cultural group - how on earth can anything be done to address it?

Actually I was born and brought up in Essex. I know the area being discussed very well, and have friends who live there. I've mentioned that I'm from Essex quite a few times on MN.

Perry and math I can't believe you're still under attack on here for refusing to bow under pressure to accept and condone blatant racism, and I applaud you.

The portrayal of entire ethnicities as criminals is just pathetic. Name a race on this earth without a criminal element!

The resistance of Roma to integrate is borne out of well documented persecution over the last 500 years. No, I won't find links for you, find them yourselves.

FWIW the Gypsies that I work with, and really enjoy working with, for the most part are so keen for their children to go to school (getting a driving license is hugely important, and is much easier to achieve if a person can read and write!) but fear for their children, and that fear comes from their own experiences of racism at school. An unreasonably high amount of the Gypsy children I work with have suffered racism at school, and the schools are very slow and reluctant to act on it; racism towards Travelling communities is ingrained in so many British people. My colleagues and I work tirelessly to stamp this racism out.

So by all means get angry about criminal behaviour, but don't tar entire communities and ethnicities with your inaccurate labels, and please don't sneer at other's ways of living. Until you have stepped in other people's shoes, you can't fully understand the rationale for their decisions.

So Maristella - when you say gypsy, which community, of the many that have been discussed on this and the other thread, are you referring to?

I never say gypsy, it's always Gypsy or Traveller

I'm referring to the ethnicities of the people I work with, many of whom have mixed Gypsy and Traveller heritage. I work with people who define their ethnic origin as Irish Traveller, Romany Gypsy or mixed.

Shame all the posts with RL experiences of living in close proximity to travellers have been deleted. I'm sure your assurances would have been fir great comfort to us.

And what about laws? What is your stance on the evictions, Maristella?

Sarah I'd like to point out that orange skin and plastic tits are only really prevalent in SOUTH Essex. Over here is North Essex we tend to look down our noses at all that nonsense. I would also like to point out to those who know nothing of Essex except Jodie Marsh, TOWIE and Dale Farm, that we have the highest number of graduates per head of population in the country, and one of (if not the second, after Surrey perhaps?) the highest earnings per head of all counties (and that doesn't happen by being stupid). We also have four of our state schools consistently appearing in the top ten performing schools in terms of results in the whole country. And if you care to persuse any of the charming league tables entitled 'Top 100 Chav towns in the UK' or 'Worst Places to live' etc., that abound on the internet you will see that Essex has far fewer representations than Surrey and Kent! But hey - let's just talk about the fake bakes.

Thank you. Party Political Broadcast for Essex over.

I don't see that experiences of crime have much to do with this. Interesting, but not relevant to a matter of illegal residential occupation of a piece of land.
A group of people brought a piece of land that didn't have planning permission at the price you pay for land that doesn't have planning permission.
They then set themselves up to live there, and lots of other people joined them.
As they didn't have planning permission and the council wasn't going to grant retrospective planning permission, by law they should be treated in the same way as other residents and have their illegal development removed.
I don't think that is racial discrimination. Racial discrimination is denying an ethnic group the rights that others have. What is being argued is that one ethnic group should be given rights over and above other people, and that they should be allowed to ignore the law and be given special priviledges.
If travellers want to settle then they have the same opportunities to do so as the rest of the population. They can save a deposit and buy a house or they can rent.

Or of course they can pay the right price for a piece of land that can be built on and get on with the job.

We rant over the poor lady who is watching her neighbours erect a dwelling in the garden next door to her and quote planning law to her. And yet many think that it's perfectly OK for some people to erect other illegal dwellings... just because of their race. What's right about that?

Well maristella judging by the appallingly high rate of young traveller men who lose their lives to road traffic accidents (and you can find that link yourself) I will have to conclude that they are not lettinga small thing like illiteracy (and the inability to pass the driving theory test, and therefore obtain a licence at all) act as a barrier to owning and driving a car.

Nothing Lucy, I don't understand the mindset of people who think it's acceptable to break the law if you are a minority.

This seems to have polarised feelings. One one side we have those who have contact in a professional or work capacity, together with some sho have no direct experience. On the other, we have those who have experience of actually living near a site/illegal site. The 2 experiences are vastly different.

Ach, Fell it was a joke. I love Essex, and I'm proud that I come from there. You're right though, it's only a tiny minority that is orange plastic. I'm from Chelmsford, slap in the middle, I'd move back like a shot if I could get DD2 into Chelmsford or Colchester High, they're amazing schools.

I have experience of keeping my horses near travellers. And could share some awful experiences that friends and I have had with them. However, to me that's all irrelevant. It's not about whether or not the people in Dale Farm would be good neighbours, criminals or anything at all. It's about the fact that they illegally and knowingly developed a site that doesn't have planning permission.
I don't care if you're black, white, Muslim or Roma, planning laws and regulations exist for a reason and should be enforced if you decide to ignore them.

curious about the statistics of young traveller men involved in road accidents, I googled, and found this on wikipedia, with links to references:

On average there are ten times more driving fatalities within the Traveller community. At 22%, this represents the most common cause of death among Traveller males.

How horrible. And I wonder how many of these accidents also claimed the lives of other road users.

It also stated that
Roughly ten times more infants die under the age of two, while a third of Travellers die before the age of 25. In addition, 80% of Travellers die before the age of 65. Some 10% of Traveller children die before their second birthday, compared to just 1% of the general population. In Ireland, 2.6% of all deaths in the total population were for people aged under 25, versus 32% for the Travellers.

This is utterly tragic. And morons are campaigning to enable travellers to continue to live like this, in large segregated groups. Because they want to preserve this culture - these cultural practices.