Rhyme and reason
Battle of Hastings: Linda Smith's home near the Battle of Hastings battlefield
An East Sussex businessman has arrested been after an email which council officials deemed offensive to Gypsies and Travellers was sent from his company. The email, concerning a planning appeal by a local Gypsy, included the phrase: ‘It’s the 'do as you likey' attitude that I am against,’ a rhyming slang version of the derogatory term ‘pikey’.
The 45-year-old IT boss, who asked not to be named, was held in a police cell for four hours until it was established he had nothing to do with the email, which had been sent by one of his then workers, Paul Osmond.
The email, from a computer at his company, was sent last August to a website at Rother District Council, in East Sussex, on which the public can comment on planning applications. It referred to an appeal by local Gypsy woman Linda Smith, who wants to keep a mobile home in an area of outstanding beauty overlooking the Battle of Hastings site.
The email also read: ‘Get a job, get planning permission but more to the point get out of the neighbourhood.’
Then council’s decision to refer the racist language to Sussex Police has clearly shocked and embarassed the businessman, who said: ‘I had a sense of total disbelief. My wife and I decided to tell my 11-year-old son I had to go with the police because I had witnessed a road accident.
‘Even though the officers were fairly pleasant to me, I was informed I would be handcuffed if I didn’t go voluntarily. They then confiscated my computer and my wife’s computer and took them to the police station.
‘I was extremely angry. I was relaxing in the comfort of my home on a Sunday afternoon and then I was in a police car under arrest – all for an innocent comment by a colleague.’
The arrest happened on November 15 and followed a three-year battle by a Gypsy family to win planning permission for the mobile home on land outside the town of Battle.
The family bought a field from a farmer, put down a concrete base, and installed the mobile home at the end of a short driveway. Rother District Council has issued an enforcement notice against the building. The businessman said he also objected to the council over the location of the mobile home, which is near his property.
He said: ‘It seems I have to get planning permission for everything I do right down to dead-heading the daffodils. It seems they can erect this home with impunity. But I made my objections entirely through the proper channels and I have absolutely nothing against anyone in the gipsy community.’
The case finally ended last week when Mr Osmond, who had been arrested and bailed, was told there would be no further police action. The planning case is continuing.
Mr Osmond, 39, of Icklesham, said: ‘I made it clear to them I am absolutely not racist. I said I was simply registering my objection to this application because it is 200ft from the most important and historical battlefield in the country.
Sussex Police said they had arrested the businessman over ‘suspicion of committing a racial or religious-aggravated offence’. After consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, it was decided to take no further action against Mr Osmond. Chief Inspector Heather Keating said: ‘Sussex Police have a legal duty to promote community cohesion and tackle unlawful discrimination."
The same police force also arrested Peter Lindsey, the editor of the Hastings Observer in 2005, on suspicion of inciting racial hatred against the Gypsy community after printing the front page headline “Gypsy Hell”. Lindsey, was also not charged with any offence.
Police said they would hold the innocent men’s DNA indefinitely, which they said was in line with national policy.
A council spokesman said: ‘As far as we were concerned it was an offensive comment, so we got in touch with the police.’