Things were bad enough already for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, says Pauline Anderson, chair of The Traveller Movement, but then they got worse. Anderson is talking about a recent documentary, ‘The Truth About Traveller Crime’, which was broadcast by Channel 4 on 16 April.
It suggested that there was a link between the location of some sites and increased crime rates. She says that the aftermath was frightening: “We have received a lot of racially motivated hate comments…saying we should be forcibly sterilised, burned alive in our caravans and other similar comments…it has put race relations back years.”
