Police should treat travellers the same as they do everyone else

It is unfair to expect the law-abiding locals in towns such as Cromer to tiptoe around terrible behaviour

You may have seen reports at the weekend about disorder in Cromer and wondered, as I did, what on earth was going on in this Norfolk seaside town in the middle of its busy summer season. There was talk of a “lockdown” and of pubs and restaurants closing their doors to prevent troublemakers from gaining entry. Groups of men were standing around behaving aggressively to the alarm of residents and holidaymakers, and there were accusations of theft and threatening behaviour.

Anyone living in Cromer might have expected the police to act swiftly and firmly to maintain order and yet there was not a single arrest. In fact, the local police chief went out of his way to play down what everyone else in the town was saying, that the fault lay with the arrival of a group of travellers.

A taxi driver told a BBC reporter that “travellers are rampaging in the town” and staff at The Wellington pub said they closed after a group became “rowdy”, losing a considerable amount of weekend trade usually bolstered by the annual carnival. Nashim Uddin, the owner of an Indian restaurant, claimed he had to force around 40 travellers to leave the premises and accused the police of looking on while he and his family dealt with people stealing drinks. “It is just not good enough,” he said. “Police could have done a lot more.” So why didn’t they?

Nick Dean, Norfolk’s deputy chief constable, said officers were treating the weekend’s events “seriously” but they clearly weren’t taking the same approach with travellers that they would have done with a bunch of, say, stag-party louts behaving aggressively and stealing property. Indeed, Mr Dean told local newspapers that “to put the blame completely on the travelling community as a whole, I think, is totally disproportionate.”

What does that mean? If he is saying that the entire travelling community in Britain is not responsible for what happened in Cromer then that is merely a statement of the obvious. But what compelled him to make that point; and why did his officers not make arrests for theft and affray?

The impression that travellers are somehow above the law infuriates the law-abiding majority who, for fear of being branded racist, are required to tiptoe around the appalling behaviour of people who turn up in their towns and villages, establish illegal camps and leave behind squalor that has to be cleared up at considerable expense to local taxpayers.

Every summer the story is the same. In the past week, there have been incidents across the country from Colchester to Plymouth. In Westonsuper-mare, hundreds of local residents confronted travellers who had set up their mobile homes on a recreation ground. The police issued a dispersal order against the protesters. As one man said: “General members of the public are being kicked off a public field and being threatened with dogs if they don’t go, so gypsies can stay on the field.”

This is a country that is tolerant of the lifestyles of others and historically has taken a strong view that everyone should be treated equally under the law, which is why so many people are resentful at the apparent latitude shown to travellers. If they want their rights to a peripatetic lifestyle upheld then they need to understand their responsibilities to others.

In recent years, travellers have been given protections as a minority; and yet they maintain that they are routinely discriminated against. They accuse councils of not providing enough legal pitches for their caravans thereby forcing them onto illegal sites from which they must then be evicted with all the costs involved in legal enforcement orders. Governments and MPS have struggled for decades to sort this out and have failed miserably.

Part of the problem lies in the planning laws. The goal should be equal and fair treatment yet there is a public perception that there is one planning system for travellers and another for settled residents. During a debate in Parliament MPS were told that large, semi-permanent sites were being allowed in places that would not be granted permission for permanent housing development. It was further alleged that the travellers often sub-let caravans, even advertising them on property websites without any enforcement action being taken, often because there is confusion over ownership and land boundaries.

Even if they are forced into illegal encampments because there is insufficient provision of legal pitches, how many camps are local people supposed to provide to further the nomadic lifestyle choice of a minority? Moreover, it is apparent that some travellers are wealthy. They can afford to purchase land and expensive new mobile homes. Why should taxpayers provide them with camp sites if they can buy them themselves? However, once they do so and settle down then they must be subject to the same laws as any other resident group.

Campaigners for traveller rights say they are treated badly, shunned by the local populace and subjected to discrimination, with their children poorly educated and excluded. But whose fault is that? The truth is public agencies from the police to planners bend over backwards to accommodate them. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, wants abuse directed against minorities online dealt with far more vigorously. But the country will simply not understand if the authorities crack down on angry comments aimed at travellers while turning a blind eye to criminal behaviour carried out by members of the minority themselves.

If their presence is often a cause for dismay it is not because of what they are, but what they do. Is it now the case that anti-social activity must be accepted because it is a manifestation of a particular “culture”? Campaigners who say travellers are the most discriminated against minority in the land need to ask themselves why that is rather than making out that the rest of us are to blame for not indulging their lifestyle.

Doubtless, there are decent, law-abiding travellers and it should go without saying that we all want to see a fair society in which people, whatever their ethnic origin or background, are valued. I am all for upholding the rights of people to pursue a particular way of life – but not if it means making the lives of others a misery in the process.