Thousands of gypsy families could be left without a safe place to go as Government consults over criminalising stopping places – inews

NewsA shortage of effective stopping places and reluctance from police to adopt the measures could impact the human rights of the community

Wednesday, 4th March 2020, 3:27 pm

No place left to go

Police will be tasked with arranging the removal of the groups, who will be expected to find settlements in sites approved by local authorities. But the legislation, said Helen O'Nions, an associate law professor and traveller expert at Nottingham Trent University, is not supported by the community - or the police.

"I do not think the government wants to hear from the community at all. There are well established groups representing the community and an all parliamentary group that represent the rights and needs of gypsies and travellers, but their requests have not been taken on board," Professor O'Nions told i.

"The police do not support the proposals either.

"Research by group Friends, Families and Travellers using FOI requests found that 75 per cent of police respondents felt existing powers were adequate and 84 per cent did not support the criminalisation of unauthorised encampments."

Daisy, who cannot disclose her full name for confidentiality reasons, is a member of the travelling community. She tweets from the account @RoadsideMum, and lives in her mobile home with her husband and young children. She fears her family could become homeless. Furthermore, if their home itself is declared illegal, it could leave them vulnerable to hate crime.

"From the moment the law comes into place (if it does, and I am petrified it might) then the police can seize my vehicles, which means by force. They can kick my door in and forcibly eject me from my home and car," she toldi.

"They can destroy my home and everything in it, even down to the last fork and spoon, or my children's teddies and passports. We could transform in an instant from a lawful family, with a home I love, to a street homeless family. It's actually worse than that even, because under the law I can be banned for a period of up to 12 months from returning to the area.

"This area I am parked in now is the local authority area where my children go to school and where my GP is. It's the only Local Authority area that I have spent enough time in to be offered emergency B&B accommodation in, in the event I suddenly didn't have a home. If I am banned from it, that leaves only cardboard box street homelessness in the nearest big city.

"Should the law change as proposed, we would never be able to ask the police for help ourselves or even report crime as witnesses, because our whole life would be essentially criminal. This opens the season for anti-traveller violent crime. At the moment, if we are threatened or worse, I can make a police report. I will never be able to do that again if these proposals pass unchallenged," she added.

Professor O'Nions shared Daisy's concerns.

"A report in 2017 by the Traveller Reform Movement found that 91 per cent of the 214 gypsy travellers surveyed had experienced racism and discrimination, far higher than for any other ethnic group, with a total of 77 per cent had experiencing hate crime or hate speech." she said.

77 per cent could lose their homes

Unlike Roma communities in most of mainland Europe, the nomadic lifestyle is still a significant part of gypsy identity in the UK. But with a shortage of legal stopover sites, the community could be left with no place to go, warned the academic, with dwindling local authority budgets leaving little room for councils to approve new sites.

"Only eight local authorities, out of 68 local authorities in the South East of England, have identified a five-year supply of specific deliverable sites for gypsies and travellers," Professor O'Nions continued.

"There are currently an estimated 1035 caravans on unauthorised land, and a further 2,000 are unauthorised but living on sites owned by travellers. This is 13 per cent of the total number of gypsy traveller caravans a small proportion of the total number, which raises questions about the proportionality of the governments proposals."

The consultation also proposes that no more than two vehicles can be present on a site, which could separate the community from family and friends.

"If there's a two vehicle limit, it leaves one little family on their own that might be easily picked on," Dr Siobhan Spencer MBE, a gypsy and academic from Derbyshire Gypsy Liaison Group, told i.

"Taking away peoples homes, apart from the trauma, is going to cause more issues than resolve them. Where is the government going to house all of the people? Obviously, if someone is committing a crime, reprimand them. But one mistake by one individual doesn't mean there should be implications for the whole community."

An easy target for the government?

While discrimination against the group is all too common, the academics believe the consultation proposals will only make tensions worse.

"It will also create increasing tension in local communities between police, local residents and the traveller community, thus fuelling intolerance and providing a justification for racism and hate crime. Discrimination toward gypsy travellers was described by the Commission for Racial Equality as the last acceptable form of racism and these proposals only endorse that message.

"The gypsy traveller community are an easy target for the government as they tend to lack a strong cohesive political voice to challenge racial stereotypes. At the same time both gypsy and Irish traveller identifies are protected by the Equality Act and therefore there is a legal duty to ensure that they are not treated less favourably on account of their ethnic origins."

"What concerns me is that the government are acting like they'd have the legal powers to do this," Dr Spencer concluded.

"Irregardless, what concerns me is that some people are willing to try, even if it destroys lives, making them significantly more awkward and miserable."

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Thousands of gypsy families could be left without a safe place to go as Government consults over criminalising stopping places - inews