GREAT BRITAIN: The Nigger Hunters

Nine young men stood in the prisoner’s dock in London’s Old Bailey and stared up at Mr. Justice Cyril Salmon. Three weeks earlier, armed with iron bars and wooden table legs, crank handles and an air gun, they had piled into a battered car and gone “nigger hunting” in a wild three-hour safari across the Notting Hill district, home of thousands of West Indians. They were, said their lawyer, victims “of the society in which they live.”

Justice Salmon was unimpressed. Said he: “You are a minute and insignificant section of the population who have brought shame upon the district in which you live, and have filled the whole nation with horror, indignation and disgust. Everyone, irrespective of the color of their skins, is entitled to walk through our streets in peace with their heads erect, and free from fear. That is a right which these courts will always unfailingly uphold.

“As far as the law is concerned, you are entitled to think what you like, however foul your thoughts; to feel what you like, however brutal and debased your emotions; to say what you like, provided you do not infringe the rights of others or imperil the Queen’s peace.

“But once you translate your dark thoughts and brutal feelings into savage acts such as these, the law will be swift to punish you, the guilty, and to protect your victims.”

Justice Salmon forthwith sentenced all nine youths to four years’ imprisonment. Shocked at the severity of the sentence, relatives and friends in the courtroom gasped in dismay, burst into hysterical sobs outside. Two of the boys were so shaken they had to be helped down the 32 steps to their cells. But that night, all was quiet in Notting Hill.