What if Stephen Lawrence had been white?

What if Stephen Lawrence, murdered back in 1993, had been white? We examine contemporary news coverage of murdered white boys to give us the answer. It has been the case for a long time that political correctness often prevents us from being honest and truthful, but as far back as 2006 the Home Office admitted that nearly half of all victims of racially motivated murders in the previous decade were white. Sadly, there have been lots of Stephen Lawrences. They were just wearing the wrong skin.

In 2006, a Sunday Times investigation by Brendan Montague examined British newspaper archives for coverage of racist crimes, finding “an almost total boycott of stories involving the white victims of attacks” whereas “cases involving black and minority ethnic victims are widely reported”.

See also Race Hate Crime – Not Woke

As the Guardian reported:

The data, released under Freedom of Information legislation, shows that between 1995 and 2004 there have been 58 murders where the police consider a racial element played a key part. Out of these, 24 have been where the murder victim was white. Senior police officers have admitted that ‘political correctness’ and the fear of discussing the issue have meant that race crime against white people goes under-reported. One chief constable has claimed that white, working-class men are more alienated than the Muslim community.

Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Cheshire and a spokesman on race issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said it was a fact that it was harder to get the media interested where murder victims were young white men.”

In 1999 the Commission for Racial Equality also published a report that concluded that most racial crimes were committed against white people.

At that time ethnic minorities only constituted around 15% of the population. It would seem therefore that 15% of the population were responsible for nearly 50% of the attacks, yet we’re told that white racism is the problem?

The murder of Richard Everitt in 1994.

The 15-year old was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack by a group of Asian boys in Somers Town, north London. The Everitt family were adamant it was a racist murder – a contention backed by many people off the record. In the 1990s it was a lack of cohesion and violence between ethnic gangs that led the late Rosemary Harris — a reader in anthropology at nearby University College — to make Somers Town the subject for her research, assisted by field workers and youth club leaders. Camden council expressed an interest, until the findings revealed white racism was not the impetus for the violence of Asian gangs.

Camden Council wanted nothing to do with it,” she said “I think because the Bangladeshis failed to emerge as the totally innocent victims of local racism. What angered me at the time was that the findings were dismissed as ‘racist’.” Some of the research featured in the book Divided Europeans: Understanding Ethnicities in Conflict (1999) but the original 50-page document remained unpublished.

In the summer of 1994 a gang of Bangladeshi teenagers between 10 and 15 strong went in search of an elusive boy believed to have stolen jewellery from the girlfriend of a gang member. Having assaulted a couple of white boys — attempting to stab one of them — they happened upon Richard Everett and two friends, aged nine and 17, returning from a burger bar. The trio of boys were ambushed. One was head-butted but managed to flee with the younger child. Richard — 6ft and 13st — was killed by a seven-inch kitchen knife penetrating his ribs, lung and heart.

Several of the suspects were dispatched to relatives in Bangladesh. The Everitts were targeted with hate mail and moved to a safe house under the witness protection scheme, eventually relocating to the north of England.

The Everitt trial began at the Old Bailey in October 1995, six months before the private prosecution brought by the Lawrence family was staged there. The Lawrences’ lawyers were the defence team in the Everitt trial. Before becoming identified with the Stephen Lawrence case the eminent QC Michael Mansfield defended the Birmingham Six and the Bridgewater Three; now he represented the Camden Six, as their supporters tagged the accused. Ultimately, two of the gang were convicted: one for being a participant in the murder, the other for violent disorder. They received prison sentences of 12 and three years respectively. The legal principle used was “joint enterprise”, the doctrine that assigns criminal liability to all those present at a crime.

The Everitts never discovered the identity of the actual murderer of their sons, and the others involved escaped prison.

The Murder of Kriss Donald 2004

Kriss Donald (2 July 1988 – 15 March 2004) was a 15-year old Scottish teenager who was kidnapped and murdered in Glasgow in 2004 by a gang of British men of Pakistani origin, some of whom fled to Pakistan after the crime.

Daanish Zahid, Imran Shahid, Zeeshan Shahid and Mohammed Faisal Mustaq were later found guilty of racially motivated murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. A fifth man, Zahid Mohammed, pleaded guilty to kidnapping, assault and lying to police and was sentenced to five years in prison. He later went on to testify against the other four at their trials. The case featured the first-ever conviction for racially motivated murder in Scotland

The kidnapping was ostensibly revenge for an attack on Shahid at a nightclub in Glasgow city centre the night before by a local white gang, and Donald was chosen as an example of a “white boy from the McCulloch Street area” despite having no involvement in the nightclub attack or in any gang activity. Donald was taken on a 200-mile journey to Dundee and back while his kidnappers made phone calls looking for a house to take him to. Having no success at this, they returned to Glasgow. There, they held his arms and stabbed him multiple times. He sustained internal injuries to three arteries, one of his lungs, his liver and a kidney. He was doused in petrol and set on fire as he bled to death

The BBC was criticised by some viewers because the case featured on national news only three times and the first trial was later largely confined to regional Scottish bulletins including the verdict itself. Although admitting that the BBC had “got it wrong”, it largely rejected the suggestion that Donald’s race played a part in the lack of reportage, instead claiming it was mostly a product of “Scottish blindness”. In preference to reporting the verdict the organisation found the time to report the opening of a new arts centre in Gateshead in its running order.

Peter Fahy, spokesman of race issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said that “it was a fact that it was harder to get the media interested where murder victims were young white men”.

A March 2004 article in The Scotsman newspaper alleged a lack of response by authorities to concerns of rising racial tensions and that Strathclyde Police had felt pressured to abandon Operation Gather, an investigation into Asian gangs in the area, for fear of offending ethnic minorities.

In a January 2005 interview with a Scottish newspaper, prominent Pakistani Glaswegian Bashir Maan claimed that “fear and intimidation” had allowed problems with Asian gangs in some parts of the city to go unchecked. The article also quoted a former senior Strathclyde police officer who criticised “a culture of political correctness” which had allowed gang crime to “grow unfettered”.

Ross Parker

Ross Andrew Parker (17 August 1984 – 21 September 2001), from Peterborough, England, was a seventeen-year-old white English male murdered in an unprovoked racially motivated crime. He bled to death after being stabbed, beaten with a hammer and repeatedly kicked by a gang of British Pakistani men. The incident occurred ten days after the September 11 attacks. In December 2002, Shaied Nazir, Ahmed Ali Awan and Sarfraz Ali were unanimously found guilty of Parker’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, each receiving minimum terms ranging from 16 to 18 years. A fourth defendant, Zairaff Mahrad, was cleared of murder and manslaughter.

Parker was murdered shortly after 1:15 a.m. on Friday 21 September 2001 while walking with his girlfriend, Nicola Toms. Racial tensions in the area were high as the 11 September attacks in New York City had occurred only ten days earlier. Having finished work early, Parker and Toms were walking to visit her friend’s house when they were confronted by a gang of around ten Pakistani youths, some of whom were wearing balaclavas.

They blocked his path and quickly sprayed him in the face with CS gas. [ He was punched in the stomach then stabbed three times from behind through the throat and chest with a foot-long hunting knife. The knife penetrated completely through his body on two occasions and as he was lying on the ground he was repeatedly kicked and struck with a panel beater’s hammer.

Toms ran to a nearby petrol station for help, but by the time she returned Parker had already bled to death and the gang had disappeared. After the murder, four of the gang returned to a garage which they used as their headquarters. Ahmed Ali Awan, brandishing the bloodied knife, exclaimed “cherish the blood”. On 26 September 2001, Sarfraz Ali, Ahmed Ali Awan and Shaied Nazir appeared in court charged with Parker’s murder. Zairaff Mahrad was charged the following day. However, by March 2002 all four defendants had been controversially released on bail.

The Home Office refused to comment on the case and the men remained free on bail. On 19 December 2002, Nazir, Awan and Ali were all found guilty of murder in unanimous verdicts. The judge, Sir Edwin Jowitt, summarised the murder during sentencing: You put your heads together with the purpose of arming yourselves and of attacking an innocent man you might find by chance simply because he was of a different race to yourselves. A racist killing must be one of the gravest kinds of killing. The judge concluded that Awan had wielded the knife, was the ringleader of the group and had intended to kill. The three received life sentences, with Awan to serve a minimum of 18 years and the others at least 16. Mahrad was cleared of murder and manslaughter.

The BBC Editorial Standards Committee in 2007 found that “there was no evidence to suggest that the BBC had shown a specific and systemic bias in favour of cases where the victim had been black or Asian”, but accepted it had “underplayed its coverage of the Ross Parker case” and repeated the failings in its coverage of the murder of Kriss Donald.

Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of The Sun, stated, “if you believe you’re a victim of an ethnic minority and you’re white there is nowhere to go. Editors are so liberal that they are scared to be seen that they’re moving to the right of their paper”. Parker’s mother, Davinia, said: “because we are white, English, we didn’t get the coverage”, adding, “it’s as if we don’t count”.