Gypsies and Travellers deserve greater respect and influence - GP Taylor

When I protested to him about his language, the man said I would soon learn. What I did learn was that his beliefs were untrue.

This type of racism was quite common and meeting many travellers over my years as a police officer, I found them to be very generous and helpful people. Many of whom had a devout faith in God.

However, travellers in this country are some of the most reviled groups and are subject to prejudice and abuse. Even though official figures state there are up to 500,000 Gipsies and Travellers, they are not afforded the same amount of protection as other groups.

During the time of the Seamer Horse Fair, I went into a local supermarket to get some shopping and was immediately followed throughout the store at close quarters by the security guard.

He stood next to me as I picked things from the shelves, it was obvious I was under suspicion. I asked him what the problem was and he made it very clear that because of my flat cap, ginger hair, waistcoat and scarf, he thought I was a gipsy.

The media portrays travellers as being a secretive community that enjoy bare knuckle fighting and hare coarsing. My Big Fat Gipsy Wedding did nothing to enhance the standing of the community. In fact, it reinforced outdated stereotypes.

It would appear then, that the traveller community is not given the same sympathetic promotion in the press and media that is afforded to other communities such as Muslims and LGTBQ+.

Don’t get me wrong, all minorities need support.

However, imagine what would happen if a group of devout gipsies surrounded a cinema in our free, democratic and liberal society demanding The Life of Brian be cancelled? They would be roughly hauled off by the police in no time at all and wouldn’t be allowed to dictate what could be shown. Remember, there is no offence of blasphemy in the UK. I cannot believe that the demands of gipsies would be taken into consideration under any circumstances.

Travellers are often hounded off the verges and councils stick up barriers to stop them camping – as has happened on the A64 at West Knapton.

The issue is that other minority groups are seen as being bigger and more influential than they actually are. A recent survey showed that public perception had a lot to do with how a particular minority was treated.

A YouGov poll asked 1,800 people what percentage of the population was transgender, the answer was five per cent. In reality between 0.3 per cent and 0.7 per cent identify as a different gender from their biological sex. A very small minority. Even though most Britons are white and heterosexual, the poll found many believe the UK is made up of far more racial, religious and sexual minorities than it actually is. When the survey asked what proportion of adults was white, the average answer was 65 per cent. The true figure is 87 per cent.

Official figures show that black Britons make up about three per cent of the population, those taking part in the survey thought it was around 20 per cent. Britons also believe 15 per cent of the population is Muslim, the actual figure is around four per cent.

This misconception runs throughout society and gives undue influence in terms of portrayal in the media. This means that many minority groups are over represented on television and in TV and print advertising. Groups like gipsies and travellers are hardly ever given positive airtime.

It is frightening that these misconceptions give some tiny minorities such great power, whilst other groups such as gipsies and travellers have to struggle for any recognition or equality.

Whilst politicians live in fear of being branded racist, trans or homophobic, they do very little to help gipsies or travellers escape from the hate crimes they suffer every day.

One only has to look at the numbers of police officers at the Appleby Horse Fair to get an idea of the underlying concerns settled communities have towards their annual visitors.

We all have to realise that there are minority groups of all kinds that are going unnoticed, pushed to the edges by the keyboard vigilantes and cinema blockers who demand more attention than their numbers deserve.