As the row over GMP's controversial use of dispersal orders to stop Travellers and Gypsy children and teenagers attending Manchester's Christmas markets rumbles on, head Gypsy Billy Welch explains the impact it's had on his community.
Billy Welch is head Gypsy. Two of his grandchildren and around 20 of his nieces and nephews were caught up in the trouble in Manchester city centre in November that saw police allegedly force dozens of Traveller children onto trains and prevent them from visiting the Christmas Markets. Here he explains the impact it had on his family and his community and what he would like to see happen now.
They didn't know where they were going. These were girls and boys dressed up in their best clothes to go to the Christmas markets. Not one of those children commmitted a crime. It isn't a crime to be a Gypsy, it isn't a crime to be a Traveller. The problem is that Greater Manchester Police seem to think it is.
The police wouldn't have done it to those children. But they did it to Gypsy children because discriminating against Gypsies is the last acceptable form of racism.
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