Sports Calendar

Peter Fahy, chief constable of Cheshire police and spokesman on race issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: “A lot of police officers and other professionals feel almost the best thing to do is to try and avoid [discussing such attacks] for fear of being criticised. This is not healthy.”

The silence means it is impossible to know how many white people are victims of racist attacks in today’s multicultural Britain and whether they are right to feel aggrieved that the attacks they suffer do not appear to get the same recognition as those of black victims.

Take the case of Christopher Yates, who had been out celebrating a birthday with a group of friends in London and, concerned about their safety, insisted on taking some of the women he was with to a bus stop during a cool November evening two years ago.

Without warning, the 30-year-old office worker was viciously assaulted by a gang of drunken Asian men — Sajid Zulfiqar, Zahid Bashir and Imran Maqsood — who stamped on his head, smashing every bone in his face before killing him.

After the murder the attackers shouted in Urdu, “We have killed the white man — that will teach an Englishman to interfere in Paki business.” Despite this appalling racism, the three were never convicted for committing a race crime — which would have meant a heavier sentence.

This led to comparisons with the brutal and unprovoked murder of Anthony Walker, a young black man who was attacked when walking to a bus stop in Liverpool with a female friend. The 18-year-old was bludgeoned with an ice axe by Paul Taylor and Michael Barton, both white, and died later in hospital.

The attack was undoubtedly racially motivated, but the fact that Taylor and Barton received sentences nine and three years longer respectively than their equally racist counterparts in London has led to suspicions that racist attacks against whites and non-whites are treated differently in the courts.

At the same time there is growing concern that attacks by Asians and other ethnic minorities have been steadily increasing, leaving some white people feeling too scared to enter city areas dominated by Asians and other minority ethnic groups.

Figures recently published under the Freedom of Information Act seem to support such fears: of the 58 people killed because of the colour of their skin between 1995 and 2004, almost half were described as white.

The British Crime Survey reveals that in 2004, 87,000 people who described themselves as black or minority ethnic (BME) had been victims of what they believed was a racially motivated crime. They had suffered 49,000 violent attacks, with 4,000 being wounded.

At the same time a staggering 92,000 white people also said that racism was the cause of an attack or crime they had suffered. The number of violent attacks against whites reached 77,000, while the number of white people who reported being wounded was five times the number of black and minority ethnic victims at 20,000.

The truth is hard to get at: Jenny Bourne, of the Institute of Race Relations, says its figures show only eight white victims of racially motivated killings between 1995 and 2004: “The Kriss Donald case involved an Asian gang which had been involved in violence already. These cases are incredibly rare compared with the number of racist attacks on minorities which take place every day.”

What is clear is that unless the attacks on whites are reported and discussed, the truth about what is happening out there will remain hazy.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Iran arrests relatives of opposition leaders
• Banksy rival has final word in art feud
• Electrician travels 175 miles to change bulb