From: hjkhjkhd@hhhh.com   
      
   Last week's horrifying trial of three Asians is part of a worrying trend,   
   says Brendan Montague   
      
         The Sunday Times November 12, 2006   
      
      
      
   No one who saw Angela Donald giving her dignified statement that "justice   
   had been done" outside the High Court in Edinburgh as the racist murderers   
   of her 15-year-old son were jailed last week could feel anything but   
   sympathy. For Margaret Massey there was more, though - a sense of   
   fellow-feeling and anger.   
   Kriss Donald was snatched off the street by an Asian gang and subjected to a   
   terrible ordeal: beaten, stabbed, doused in petrol and set ablaze. Massey's   
   son Lee, a rugby player, was also the subject of a racially motivated attack   
   when he was set upon by a gang of Iraqi asylum seekers "out looking for   
   someone" to hurt.   
      
      
   He and two friends were stabbed in a car park in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire,   
   in October 2003. Lee was then thrown into the air and suffered devastating   
   brain injuries when one of the gang used a car to run him down. Three years   
   later he has not fully recovered.   
   Massey still feels aggrieved that - in her view - the police inquiry was   
   hindered by political correctness because officers feared that reporting   
   that a white man had been so brutally attacked by asylum seekers would   
   further fuel racial tensions following several such brawls in the area.   
   "The police didn't charge 13 members of the gang even though I believe there   
   was some evidence," she says.   
   "If our Lee had run over one of the Iraqis he would have been arrested right   
   away and sent to prison for the rest of his life. The police are nervous   
   when white people are attacked. In this area this is happening more and more   
   often."   
   The killing of Stephen Lawrence 13 years ago sparked off an orgy of   
   soul-searching throughout liberal Britain.   
   But we have never quite acknowledged that violence comes from both sides.   
   Gavin Hopley, 19, was kicked to death by up to eight Asian men in Oldham in   
   February 2002. Six men were convicted of violent disorder and theft offences   
   but no one has been convicted of his murder.   
   An Asian gang was also responsible for the violent killing of 17-year-old   
   Ross Parker, who was savagely stabbed with hunting knives during an attack   
   in Peterborough in 2001. David Lees, 23, was run over and killed during a   
   fight between whites and a gang of Asians in Prestwich, Manchester, only   
   last month.   
   There has been numerous inquiries and new legislation since the Lawrence   
   case and almost everyone concerned with race relations will confirm that   
   policing in cases involving race has improved immeasurably since that tragic   
   event.   
   However, the debate about the white victims of racist attacks seems to have   
   progressed no further in the past 10 years - because of fears of "political   
   correctness" and the threat of the far right making political capital out of   
   personal tragedy.   
   Sir Ian Blair, Britain's most senior police officer, even attacked the press   
   as "institutionally racist" in January this year because cases such as the   
   killing of Tom ap Rhys Pryce, the solicitor, had gained more publicity than   
   the equally terrible death on the same day of Balbir Matharu, who had tried   
   to stop thieves ripping the radio from his car.   
   An extensive search of national and regional newspaper reports, however,   
   shows that cases involving black and minority ethnic victims are widely   
   reported, while there is an almost total boycott of stories involving the   
   white victims of similar attacks. Is this because newspapers fear their   
   reports appearing on BNP leaflets, or because the police are less likely to   
   issue appeals for help?   
   Peter Fahy, chief constable of Cheshire police and spokesman on race issues   
   for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "A lot of police   
   officers and other professionals feel almost the best thing to do is to try   
   and avoid [discussing such attacks] for fear of being criticised. This is   
   not healthy."   
   The silence means it is impossible to know how many white people are victims   
   of racist attacks in today's multicultural Britain and whether they are   
   right to feel aggrieved that the attacks they suffer do not appear to get   
   the same recognition as those of black victims.   
      
   Take the case of Christopher Yates, who had been out celebrating a birthday   
   with a group of friends in London and, concerned about their safety,   
   insisted on taking some of the women he was with to a bus stop during a cool   
   November evening two years ago.   
   Without warning, the 30-year-old office worker was viciously assaulted by a   
   gang of drunken Asian men - Sajid Zulfiqar, Zahid Bashir and Imran Maqsood -   
   who stamped on his head, smashing every bone in his face before killing him.   
      
      
   After the murder the attackers shouted in Urdu, "We have killed the white   
   man - that will teach an Englishman to interfere in Paki business." Despite   
   this appalling racism, the three were never convicted for committing a race   
   crime - which would have meant a heavier sentence.   
   This led to comparisons with the brutal and unprovoked murder of Anthony   
   Walker, a young black man who was attacked when walking to a bus stop in   
   Liverpool with a female friend. The 18-year-old was bludgeoned with an ice   
   axe by Paul Taylor and Michael Barton, both white, and died later in   
   hospital.   
   The attack was undoubtedly racially motivated, but the fact that Taylor and   
   Barton received sentences nine and three years longer respectively than   
   their equally racist counterparts in London has led to suspicions that   
   racist attacks against whites and non-whites are treated differently in the   
   courts.   
   At the same time there is growing concern that attacks by Asians and other   
   ethnic minorities have been steadily increasing, leaving some white people   
   feeling too scared to enter city areas dominated by Asians and other   
   minority ethnic groups.   
   Figures recently published under the Freedom of Information Act seem to   
   support such fears: of the 58 people killed because of the colour of their   
   skin between 1995 and 2004, almost half were described as white.   
   The British Crime Survey reveals that in 2004, 87,000 people who described   
   themselves as black or minority ethnic (BME) had been victims of what they   
   believed was a racially motivated crime. They had suffered 49,000 violent   
   attacks, with 4,000 being wounded.   
   At the same time a staggering 92,000 white people also said that racism was   
   the cause of an attack or crime they had suffered. The number of violent   
      
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