PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
Racial Harassment and the Police (13 December 1989)

That this House finds the article in The Guardian newspaper of 13th December about the repeated racial attacks upon Ramesh K and his family at Sparrow Farm Estate, Feltham, deeply disturbing, particularly with regard to the local police's failure to recognise the problem, properly protect the family and stamp out the racist assaults, and in the irrelevance and virulence of their principal response which has been to politically attack Southall Monitoring Group and Hounslow and Ealing Councils which have sought to assist racial attack victims; notes that police beat officers lectured the victims in this case about their 'attitude problem'; notes that at the police's 24th August meeting they only asked Ramesh K about the Southall Monitoring Group's involvement in the case, to further their vendetta against that organisation,and not about the assaults he and his family suffered; considers that this article clearly illustrates that the Metropolitan Police are still not serious about effectively tackling racial attacks, being slow to respond, letting many of the perpetrators go unpunished by either not catching them or presenting ineffectual evidence in court, victimising the victims, and directing their fire against community organisations seeking to get a more appropriate police response; notes that in too many such cases the police are simply not working with the community; and calls for a racial harrassment law, as proposed by the honourable Member for Leyton, which would make racial attacks a specific criminal offence, punish the perpetrators and place a legal duty upon the police to respond speedily and be publicly accountable for their actions in all such cases.

Sponsored by:
Harry Cohen (Labour)