Racial Violence in Birmingham, The Media and The Law

Last August 47-year-old Brian May was sitting on a train at Snow Hill station minding his own business when he was viciously assaulted by two Asian men. As the two men kicked and punched their defenceless victim they screamed racist abuse at him. The prolonged assault was so violent that witnesses feared for Mr May’s life, but fortunately he escaped with extensive bruising and a substantial loss of blood.

The most significant aspect of this incident is the unprecedented news coverage it received. Local and national media routinely maintain a deafening silence on racist attacks against white people, whilst at the same time dedicating maximum exposure to anything where there is even a hint of racism towards ethnic minorities. This is despite the fact that attacks on white people by ethnic minorities are commonplace in the multicultural utopia of the West Midlands. They are ignored, swept under the carpet at all cost by an establishment hell-bent on maintaining the mythical notion that we all live in harmonious co-existence.

Surely, to adopt such an attitude towards certain victims and not others on account of their skin colour is, using their own term, ‘institutionally racist’.

A second significant factor about the train attack is the media reaction. The two thugs who assaulted Mr May were both Sikhs and although Sikh-on-white violence is not unheard of, it is rare. Perhaps the media picked up on this incident simply because the perpetrators were NOT Muslims.

Clearly the media has no option but to cover acts of terrorism/terrorist plots, but this must be immensely troubling for many newspaper editors who simply do not wish to undermine the official line that their multi-cultural society is an unalloyed good. Therefore, racial crimes committed by Muslims are deliberately concealed – there can be no other explanation. Everyone has heard the case of Zahid Mubarek, the Muslim criminal murdered for purely racial motives by his white cellmate in Feltham young offender’s institute. Yet can you name a single murder victim of an indigenous Briton by Muslim racists? Thought not, but it’s not for the lack of examples – Ross Parker, Lee Martin, Gavin Hopley, Ashley Hedger and Kriss Donald were all killed by Muslims in racist attacks. The reaction in the media in each case? Silence.

Furthermore, if a crime has been committed where the racial profile of the suspect suggests he may be a Muslim the description of the attacker is frequently omitted from the report altogether. In instances where the perpetrator is described, the victim is often not referred to as this would also identify a racial pattern. Of course we abhor and condemn all racial violence in the strongest possible terms, however we feel that such bias in the reporting of certain attacks is unacceptable.

The third and final injustice of the whole sorry episode is the most eye-opening and concerns the sentences handed down to Mr May’s attackers. The youngest, Balvinder Hunjan Singh, was sent to a young offenders institute for 18 months and his accomplice was sent to prison for the same period. They had been charged with racially aggravated assault, possession of a controlled substance and, in the case of Hunjan Singh, common assault as well. The assault on its own, and the violence with which it was carried out, make these punishments paltry to say the least. However, the victim wasn’t the only person who found the sentencing repugnant.

Those who have followed the case of West Midland BNP activist Kevin Hughes will find the parallels disturbing, although not surprising. Kevin was charged with the same crime (minus the possession/common assault) having allegedly been involved in an altercation with an Iraqi asylum seeker in Worcester (there were no witnesses). Kevin received a two and a half year sentence – that’s a whole year on top of what the two Sikhs received. This judicial imbalance is compounded by the fact that the Sikhs were convicted of two additional charges and as opposed to Kevin’s case where the Iraqi received no injuries, Mr May suffered substantial physical damage. This is to take no account of the mental distress caused both to Mr May and the witnesses forced to watch this sickening act of barbarity.

The racial aspect of Kevin’s conviction was later dropped on appeal and he was freed last month. Click Here for further examples of racial injustice.


Click Here for CCTV footage of the attack on Mr May.