Statement on intimidation and hate from Reform councillors and political assistant

A statement has just been given to Warwickshire Police regarding the hate, aggression, intimidation, and ridicule experienced by members of the Warwickshire Pride team on Friday from Reform councillors and Reform’s political assistant. This is a video about what happened and how it was reported to the police.

A transcript is available below:

Hi, it is Dan here, Chair of Warwickshire Pride. It’s a beautiful sunny Sunday morning. I’m in Stratford, it’s just before 8 o’ clock in the morning and I’m heading to Stratford police station to give a statement about what happened at our protest on Friday.

So, for those who are not aware, we held a protest with lots of other groups, women’s groups, disability groups, anti-racist groups and so on, to protest against Warwickshire County Council’s administration proposing to cut funding to the Equality and Inclusion Partnership (EQuiP), who do fantastic work across the nine protected characteristics. Discrimination, casework, all sorts of really cool stuff.

And you know, the cutting EQuiP is going to affect all of us basically. You know, we all fit into the nine protected characteristics somehow. So we held a protest.

Now, at that protest, one of the Reform councillors, Mike Bannister, and Reform’s political assistant, I don’t know his name, came outside to the protest and they came up towards me and a colleague from Warwickshire Pride and called us a couple of “gay boys”.

A few minutes later they stood about 10 metres away from us and were pointing at us and laughing. Then inside the meeting to make the decision about whether to consult on cutting funding to EQuiP, Mike Bannister, the councillor, was then very aggressive towards me when I was speaking as a registered speaker at the meeting.

So it’s been reported to the police and they have logged it as a Section 4 public order offence, but that’s elevated to include LGBT+ hate crime. So I’m here at the police station this morning to give a statement basically about what happened and hopefully something will be done about this, because it’s unacceptable for anyone to commit a hate crime against any person, but for a sitting councillor to come out and behave like that and then behave like that again in the meeting because someone is gay is completely unacceptable.

So a complaint has also been logged with Warwickshire County Council that they won’t be able to look into it until the police investigation is done. So anyway, I’m here at the police station, I’m going to give my statement. When I come out, I’m going to add another bit to this video to let you all know how it went.

So I’ve just come out of Stratford Police Station, I’ve given the report, made a statement about everything that happened. So first of all, when we were protesting, when the Reform councillor, Mike Bannister and Reform’s political assistant came outside, called me and a colleague from Pride, a couple of gay boys pointing at us, laughing, all of that kind of stuff, and then also what happened inside the meeting which Councillor Bannister from Reform was chairing, where he was aggressive towards me when trying to speak. And then also when Councillor George Finch, the leader of Warwickshire County Council, was laughing very loudly, ridiculing me throughout my speech.

When I asked him to stop, Mike Bannister became aggressive towards me again and allowed George Finch to continue laughing and ridiculing me. And then after the meeting, when we went outside of Shire Hall, Councillor Mike Bannister then came towards me in a very aggressive intimidating way, got very close, but then kind of went off to a side.

So it’s all been reported to the police. I’ve given my statement. They have taken it seriously. They’ve confirmed again that it’s been logged as a Section 4 public order offence. Events elevated with a hate crime element. They’re now going to be speaking to the witnesses, they’re going to be looking at CCTV. They’re going to look at the live stream of the meeting, which will show George Finch ridiculing me and Councillor Bannister being aggressive. And we will see what comes of that.

But I will keep you posted. I think it’s important, I know that there’s low confidence in the police at the moment among our communities, so I want this process to be documented so that people can see or hear what has happened, what’s been reported, how the police response was and ultimately the outcome of the investigation.

I’m not going to get my hopes up. This is Warwickshire Police, after all. But the officer that took the statement did take it seriously and was very empathetic and very professional I found, and I think that although there might be a reluctance to report things to the police, I think it is important that incidents are reported.

As frustrating as it can be to deal with the police and even distressing, I think that things need to be reported if you feel able to do so. So I’m practising what I preach and I will provide an update via the Warwickshire Pride channels when there’s some kind of update or outcome to this. But I wanted to make this to show what’s been happening on Friday, how it’s been reported and how that went.

Anyway, enjoy the sunshine.