Pontins in trouble for filtering traveller types

[irc]

vaud said:

Guybrush said:

I don't think race has anything to do with it. It's no different from a car insurance company refusing cover for those meeting certain criteria. It's based on statistics.

Statistics based on accents and surnames?

Statistics?

"Travellers accounted for 0.7 per cent of the country’s population but made up 10 per cent of the general prison population and 15 per cent of the female prisoner population."

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2022/07/05/tr...

[vaud]

irc said:

vaud said:

Guybrush said:

I don't think race has anything to do with it. It's no different from a car insurance company refusing cover for those meeting certain criteria. It's based on statistics.

Statistics based on accents and surnames?

Statistics?

"Travellers accounted for 0.7 per cent of the country’s population but made up 10 per cent of the general prison population and 15 per cent of the female prisoner population."

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2022/07/05/tr...

I meant statistics based on accents and surnames when taking a booking.

I don't dispute your stats.

But the legislation is clear.

[MBVitoria]

J4CKO said:

Bit of tail wagging the dog here.

If travelling folk, turned up, behaved, didn't wreck the joint, didnt steal and destroy stuff then they would be welcomed with open arms as companies like the revenue, so this decision is not based on race, its based on the financial realities that they will make a mess, cause fights, steal and generally be obnoxious. Double whammy as other guests leave if you have a full on traveller event.

Anyone playing a race card needs to think, am I justified in this or is it to try and get one over on someone or avoid any scrutiny on my stty behaviour ? Thing is, constant misuse will reduce the validity for those suffering genuine discrimination.

I sympathise with those travellers who conduct themselves well, I guess there must be some out there as they do get tarred (ironic...) with the same brush.

But anyone I know who has had any dealings has suffered. Where my dad worked had a vacant site next door and they set up in there, people stting behind their fire escape, tons or rubbish and rubble, 20k to clear it all up. The local Cricket field had them arrive, saw their kids donutting quad bikes on there, foot deep tyre tracks from vans, lorries and caravans. My wife worked in a wedding dress shop, some came in tried a dress on and walked out wearing it, over a grand back in the nineties. Thats why people dont welcome them with open arms, but dress it up as a race thing, they are the same race as I am, I have some Irish heritage, we have Irish family members and they dont do that stuff ? More a subculture than anything.

Its not hating people, its hating behaviour based on previous negative experiences.

Nail, head.

Every single interaction I've had with Irish travellers has been negative however they're a protected race under the Equality Act so they have the ultimate trump card. Piss boiled!!

[Snow and Rocks]

irc said:

Statistics?

"Travellers accounted for 0.7 per cent of the country’s population but made up 10 per cent of the general prison population and 15 per cent of the female prisoner population."

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2022/07/05/tr...

Interesting that they attempt to point the blame at the system being biased or not meeting the needs of travellers rather than just at the travellers for committing lots of crime!

[Genuine Barn Find]

MBVitoria said:

Nail, head.

Every single interaction I've had with Irish travellers has been negative however they're a protected race under the Equality Act so they have the ultimate trump card. Piss boiled

Yep, my dad had them turn up at his business. The cost of repairs went into the £1000’s. The police turned up a few times. On one occasion one of the children dragged a screwdriver down the side of his car in full view of a copper. He just shrugged his shoulders.

When i was in the trade a colleague at another dealership was hounded to the point that he left the area and relocated. We are talking threats against him and his family… they even sent prostitutes to the dealership. We were unofficially instructed not to deal with them. The last visit we had was an attempted part exchange. It was politely declined. After they left (after hurling abuse and damaging a used car), we discovered that one of them had visited the toilets and had smeared s**t all over the walls. They were also active in car stripping. A junior tech left a pristine Defender in the car park overnight, and not locked inside the compound. In the morning the Defender (or what was left of it) was found. They’d taken an angle grinder to it. A complete write off. We had one ‘sell back’ slip through the net… inexperienced sales exec and business manager who wasn’t interested. That cost a few pounds to sort as well.

In the interests of balance we had several customers who were Showmen. Impeccably turned out, and what was always evident was just how beautifully behaved their children were. A pleasure to do business with and they always paid cash and were extremely easy going. You wouldn’t want to cross them, but as long as you looked after them with price there were never any issues. They couldn’t stand travellers and viewed them as the lowest of the low within their wider community.

[lord trumpton]

Dog Star said:

Sorry for dragging the thread off topic….

Prior to this I’d spent a couple of years working in France and to a man every single person I met, when they found out I was British would come out with “ah, anglais, ‘olligans, eh” or some variant thereof.

Yep; a national embarrassment and a reason I cannot stand football or the knuckledragger fans. These days they’ve been joined by the package holiday crowd busy scrapping over sun beds.

Absolutely 10000% agree with every word DS

[Slowboathome]

vaud said:

98elise said:

Nor is living in a caravan IMO.

That may be your opinion but the protection is applied Gypsies, Roma and Travellers.

Don't agree? Lobby your MP for change.

Living in a caravan is not a protected characteristic. The race of the person is the protected characteristic.

[lrdisco]

Again every interaction with the caravan dwellers has been massively negative.
Threats to smash my head in with a sledgehammer after an argument over their behaviour.
Sites being robbed of tools.
Invasion of playing fields with st left every where.
Stealing en mass from local businesses.
They are scum. Utter scum. A disgrace to humanity.
Can you tell I don’t like them?

[21TonyK]

Is this not old news?

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56246848

[Alickadoo]

Snow and Rocks said:

I think it's a policy shared by a lot companies, they just generally don't publicise the fact.

When I worked as a taxi driver as a student, there's no way we would send a car to a traveller's site because you almost never got paid and the police wouldn't do anything about it.

Because it was nothing to do with the police. It is a civil matter, not criminal.

Next time you have a meal in a restaurant, walk out without paying. Calling the police will do nothing, because it's nothing to do with them.

[vaud]

Slowboathome said:

vaud said:

98elise said:

Nor is living in a caravan IMO.

That may be your opinion but the protection is applied Gypsies, Roma and Travellers.

Don't agree? Lobby your MP for change.

Living in a caravan is not a protected characteristic. The race of the person is the protected characteristic.

I know. I think the inference was pretty clear.

[Alickadoo]

vaud said:

Slowboathome said:

vaud said:

98elise said:

Nor is living in a caravan IMO.

That may be your opinion but the protection is applied Gypsies, Roma and Travellers.

Don't agree? Lobby your MP for change.

Living in a caravan is not a protected characteristic. The race of the person is the protected characteristic.

I know. I think the inference was pretty clear.

I think that was an implication, not an inference.

[Ian Geary]

Alickadoo said:

Because it was nothing to do with the police. It is a civil matter, not criminal.

Next time you have a meal in a restaurant, walk out without paying. Calling the police will do nothing, because it's nothing to do with them.

Theft is a crime

https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/ask-the-police...

Although there are circumstances that can cloud the water, and make it a civil issue.

Like policing traveller transgressions, it's often difficult to prove, which is probably why the police won't want to get involved for small amounts.


I'm surprised that some don't feel Irish travellers are a protected group? Splitting hairs over them being a "race" or not is irrelevant.

The EHCR has literally found them guilty of discrimination - and I would imagine they know what they're talking about.


My few interactions with Irish travellers have all been negative, and everyone I have ever talked to about them have similar anecdotes.

However, the law is clear, and that is the price we pay for trying to improve our society.

If anyone feels angst towards this community, the fact is they have far worse education outcomes, health outcomes and economic outcomes that settled parts of society, and councils rarely if ever provide the required number of pitches for them.

Imo, they have made their bed, dragged it onto someone's property, so have to lie in it.

But discrimination against them is still illegal.

[BikeBikeBIke]

Slowboathome said:

Living in a caravan is not a protected characteristic. The race of the person is the protected characteristic.

I'm not sure that's true:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/secti...


The equalities act doesn't seem to define the characteristics that make you a traveller and includes "culture" so moving around makes you part of traveller culture. Smashing up holiday camps is also seems to be part of their culture - wonder that the courts think about that.

Maybe some legal knowledge can correct my googling and find a definition of traveller from a protected characteristics POV.

Locally to me the definition of traveller in the planning process is "travelling or potentially able to travel" which has lead to traveller setting up permanent homes without planning permission in an AONB.

[croyde]

I'm of Irish stock and recently have gained an Irish passport.

So relieved to find that my name is not on that list

[vaud]

BikeBikeBIke said:

I'm not sure that's true:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/secti...

The equalities act doesn't seem to define the characteristics that make you a traveller and includes "culture" so moving around makes you part of traveller culture. Smashing up holiday camps is also seems to be part of their culture - wonder that the courts think about that.

Maybe some legal knowledge can correct my googling and find a definition of traveller from a protected characteristics POV.

Locally to me the definition of traveller in the planning process is "travelling or potentially able to travel" which has lead to traveller setting up permanent homes without planning permission in an AONB.

From Govt Site

The Department for Communities and Local Government (at the time, now the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) planning policy for traveller sites (PDF) defines "gypsies and travellers" as:

"Persons of nomadic habit of life whatever their race or origin, including such persons who on grounds only of their own or their family’s or dependants’ educational or health needs or old age have ceased to travel temporarily, but excluding members of an organised group of travelling showpeople or circus people travelling together as such."

[BikeBikeBIke]

vaud said:

BikeBikeBIke said:

I'm not sure that's true:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/secti...

The equalities act doesn't seem to define the characteristics that make you a traveller and includes "culture" so moving around makes you part of traveller culture. Smashing up holiday camps is also seems to be part of their culture - wonder that the courts think about that.

Maybe some legal knowledge can correct my googling and find a definition of traveller from a protected characteristics POV.

Locally to me the definition of traveller in the planning process is "travelling or potentially able to travel" which has lead to traveller setting up permanent homes without planning permission in an AONB.

From Govt Site

The Department for Communities and Local Government (at the time, now the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) planning policy for traveller sites (PDF) defines "gypsies and travellers" as:

"Persons of nomadic habit of life whatever their race or origin, including such persons who on grounds only of their own or their family’s or dependants’ educational or health needs or old age have ceased to travel temporarily, but excluding members of an organised group of travelling showpeople or circus people travelling together as such."

Thanks, that's clear.

[JagLover]

croyde said:

I'm of Irish stock and recently have gained an Irish passport.

So relieved to find that my name is not on that list

The Irish themselves are not keen on the travellers and one of the reasons we started having more of them is that the Irish government cracked down on them and the soft British government did not.

[Snow and Rocks]

Alickadoo said:

Because it was nothing to do with the police. It is a civil matter, not criminal.

Next time you have a meal in a restaurant, walk out without paying. Calling the police will do nothing, because it's nothing to do with them.

Utter tosh - the police sorted it out every other time I had someone who refused to pay their fare. Usually getting the police involved was enough to make the money appear quite quickly but one repeat offender got charged.

[NDA]

lrdisco said:

Again every interaction with the caravan dwellers has been massively negative.
Threats to smash my head in with a sledgehammer after an argument over their behaviour.
Sites being robbed of tools.
Invasion of playing fields with st left every where.
Stealing en mass from local businesses.
They are scum. Utter scum. A disgrace to humanity.
Can you tell I don’t like them?

Yebut, that's their rights. Protected characteristics.