BNP ‘Racial attack’ claim sparks disgust

By Alison Kershaw | Friday, 22 April 2005 Source: Epping Forest Guardian

A LOUGHTON resident has hit out at a British National Party leaflet that claims a recent machete assault in Debden was a "horrific racial attack."

The resident, who lives near Valley Hill but who asked not to be named, received the leaflet through her door last week. The pamphlet refers to an incident in which a man narrowly avoided losing two fingers when he was attacked by a teenage gang, as "a vicious and unprovoked attack on a local man."

It added that the man was assaulted by "a racist gang of Asians".

The woman said the BNP was making problems worse.

She said: "I think there's a lot of issues in Debden at the moment anyway, and things like this make it worse. It encourages racial issues in something that wasn't. I don't think we need the BNP to get involved in things like this.

"We don't know the whole story. It could have happened to anybody who was there at the time."

She added: "I couldn't believe it when my dad showed it to me.

"No one, like the police, has said it was a racial attack. They're targeting the area and exploiting what has happened."

BNP district councillor Terry Farr said: "I've been informed that the police are considering this a racial attack, because I spoke to the victim himself. We sent the leaflets out because it happened here, and it's happened now so we wanted to tell people."

Investigating officer Detective Constable Neil Sinclair urged caution to anyone reading the BNP leaflet.

He said: "We don't stand with any comments that are circulated to incite any form of racial disharmony in the community.

"It has been recorded as a racially motivated attack mainly because of the comments made by the attacker and the group he was with towards the victim. It's an ongoing investigation and until both parties are spoken to to find out the motivation, we can't absolutely say with certainty."