‘Our Whole Existence Is Illegal’: What the Police Removal of Traveller Children Reveals About Public and Media Attitudes Towards Community

A story you might have missed this week: accusations that Greater Manchester Police meted out “discriminatory” and “heavy-handed” policing towards children from Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller (GRT) communities at Christmas markets last weekend.

A statement from the force said they were “monitoring and managing a significant increase in footfall”, adding they are “determined” to “engage these communities in Manchester and further afield”.

So why did not a single Gypsy, Roma or Traveller person apply to work for Greater Manchester Police during the three-year Uplift recruitment drive – that was sold as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to “increase diversity in policing” by the then-Conservative government?

Videos on social media and seen by Manchester Evening News appeared to show Romani Gypsies and Irish Traveller children being stopped from attending the Christmas markets by police, and ‘forced’ back onto trains out of the city.

Many of them were girls in dresses, being met at station platforms and ushered by officers onto trains. They can be overheard shouting they don’t know where they are going. One says: “You’d think we killed someone!”

Report Racism GRT, a hate incident reporting site and GRT support forum, claimed some younger children were “separated from their siblings”.

The Traveller Movement, a support and campaign group, said the incident had “left children upset and distressed, with parents deeply concerned about the treatment that their children have faced… these children were simply trying to enjoy the festivities like everyone else, but instead have been unfairly targeted and marginalised.”

A response by Greater Manchester Police Assistant Chief Constable said: “We understand there are feelings of mistreatment and confusion amongst groups of people for being turned away” – but failed to mention quite exactly which ‘groups of people’ they were referring to.

The spiritless statement to “engage these communities” falls flat when you look at the data: Roma people have a relatively high presence in Greater Manchester, yet not a single one responded to the Police Uplift recruitment drive that saw 10,000 new officers employed around England and Wales between 2020 and 2023.

The bleak figure comes from Greater Manchester Police’s own recruitment data, sourced by Media Storm via Freedom of Information.

Rather than ‘engaging’ these communities, the abysmal recruitment efforts support video evidence that British police officers habitually ‘adultify’ GRT children, and stereotype them as threats and criminals. According to community members who spoke on Media Storm, this is mirrored by what the mainstream media tends to do.

Tom Manders, an actor, writer and producer, said there was a shift in coverage of GRT people post the sixties – but it wasn’t necessarily for the better. Pre-60s, “we were portrayed as these kind of magical, otherworldly people, which has its own problems. But when you look at it from a media perspective, since the 60s, the media representation of us in that time has become awful.”

Manders points to examples such as Channel 4’s My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, which was criticised by many GRT communities for stereotyping and amalgamating the differentiating groups within the community into one, and Netflix’s black-comedy drama ‘Afterlife’, led by Ricky Gervais: “Mickey the Gypsy is a comedy character who sleeps with someone’s wife, he’s dirty, he’s violent, he punches up people for no reason.”

Manders sees his job as rare: “Then you factor in that there aren’t any gypsies anywhere. No directors. No screenwriters. We’re not in the media, so we have no say in how we’re portrayed.”

Charlotte James, a Community Health and Wellbeing Coordinator from the Leeds Gypsy and Traveller Exchange, told Media Storm of receiving negative comments from people from a young age. When asked what stereotypes she’s received, she replies: “Dishonest people, sort of like… scum of the earth with no morals.”

While stereotyping is one thing, survival is another.

In a conversation with Mikey Walsh, columnist and author of autobiography ‘Gypsy Boy’, on Media Storm, Walsh laid out the effects of the fear and hatred of GRT communities: “People don’t understand our community is actually being wiped out now.”

Walsh refers to the Police, Crimes, Sentencing and Courts Act, which became law under the Conservative Government in 2022. Aside from its crackdowns on protesting freedoms, the legislation caused controversy with its targeted attacks on GRT ways of life.

The Act ruled that people who live on roadside camps can face time in prison, as well as a £2500 fine, or their home being taken from them. With an already chronic national shortage of places nomadic Gypsies and Travellers can legally and safely stop, the act increases their risk of homelessness. 

So was it only a matter of time until the scenes of forcible removement in Manchester happened? And if it wasn’t for social media, would we have seen them at all? 

After being picked up by the Manchester Evening News (who broke the story), this anti-GRT discrimination – a historically neglected area of coverage – was picked up by a few centre and left-leaning outlets: BBC News, The Guardian, and ITV. Beyond that you probably didn’t see it. It’s always been – and continues to be – a blindspot on the Right.

A blindspot now so obvious, the police response to the dispersal of the “groups of people” didn’t even mention the Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller communities by name.

But if they really want to ease relations, that acknowledgement would be a start. 
Media Storm’s News Watch is out now.