Читать книгу No Win Race. A Story of Belonging, Britishness and Sport онлайн

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By the summer of 1984, racist violence had not subsided. I had been transitioning from primary to secondary school. At this point, Little Ilford had a mobile police unit situated within its school grounds. It had also erected spiked metal frames on the periphery of the school. My parents decided that it would be safer sending me to Langdon Secondary School in East Ham, some 30 minutes away from our house, instead of Little Ilford.

Disgust.

On 7 August 1984, a group of white youths randomly started carrying out acts of violence against black and Asian people. In one incident, a disabled Asian youth was hit on the head with a hammer. A group of Asian youths decided to confront the alleged white culprits outside the Duke of Edinburgh pub. A fight ensued but whereas five of the Asian youths spent seven weeks on remand for offences that did not warrant such length, their white counterparts were immediately let out on bail.

On 29 November 1984, 16-year-old black youth Eustace Pryce was stabbed in the head outside the Greengate pub in Plaistow. Pryce, his brother Gerald and some friends had confronted racists, which led to a fight in which Eustace was fatally stabbed. The police, on arrival, arrested Gerald and not Eustace’s killer despite plain-clothes officers allegedly witnessing the tail end of the fight. Eustace’s killer Martin Newhouse was eventually arrested. Yet while Newhouse had been let out on bail because ‘it would be wrong to keep him in jail over Christmas’, Gerald had been denied bail. He spent Christmas in prison and on release Gerald was prevented from going back into Newham, despite his girlfriend being pregnant at the time.