“‘We are going to find you, we are going to burn you at home,’ they yelled at us,” says the father.
“Dad, why don’t we take that leftover paint from the house and paint me, you, and my brother? If we all paint ourselves white, we won’t have any more problems “.
The comment was made by his son while they were in the bathtub, playing with the foam, and he says it was the first time that the situation really affected him.
“Honestly, the tears came to me,” says a father who lives with his family in the south of England.
By then they had been suffering from racist abuse from neighbors for years.
The harassment was such that they had to change home, work, school, for fear, they say, that their house would be burned.
Neither a fine nor a restraining order had managed to stop him.
They were relocated last summer with the help of the nonprofit Sovereign Housing, which has not commented on the matter.
The abuse started in september 2017.
“It was completely unexpected,” says the father.
“We arrived by car and the children began to enter the house. I heard someone yell, ‘Weirdo!’ ”He recalls.
“I looked and saw this guy, one of our neighbors, standing on the other side, hurling insults,” he continues.
“They started getting closer and closer. They got together and yelled more racist expletives. “
The family reported the abuse to the police and the neighbors were called to appear in court.
One of them, a woman, pleaded guilty to having committed a racial public order offense and was fined 200 pounds (about US $ 265) in November 2017.
And that same fine received another of the neighbors, a man, in January 2018.
The Sovereign Housing association, which owns homes throughout the south and west of England, had filed a civil lawsuit against them after their staff were “shocked by threats of violence” received by the family.
Despite that, the family says that the abuse continued and no further action was taken about it.
“‘We are going to find you, we are going to burn you in your house‘They yelled at us, ”says the father.
“I had a bucket ready to fill with water if necessary, because I was worried that these people were going to set the house on fire with us inside.”
The police unit that handles complaints of racial abuse said officers had spoken with independent witnesses within 48 hours of the first complaint.
“We know that hate crimes have a huge impact on the victims, their families and the community in general,” said a police spokesman.
“We want our residents to know that we take all reports of hate crimes very seriously and that there is support available to them.”
The Crown Prosecutors Service (CPS) claims to have asked the court for higher sentences for abusers, who received higher fines, commensurate with the racist nature of their crimes.
“We recognize that the victims in this case have suffered greatly from racist abuse from their neighbors,” commented a CPS spokesperson.
“No one should live in fear of being a victim of crime, and it has become clear that they have endured incredibly offensive language.”
“The defendants were prosecuted under the crown prosecutor’s code for using racially offensive language.”
“The CPS was able to obtain guilty pleas from both defendants, which means that the victims did not have to testify at trial.”
The BBC contacted Sovereign Housing, but has not commented on the case.
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
