A group of travellers pitched up at a coastal car park told police in a heated exchange that in one phone call they could ‘have 100 travellers here’ as back up.
Adventurer Ed Stafford witnessed the altercation as he spent 60 days with Romani gypsies and Irish travellers across the UK for a Channel 4 documentary, admitting to having ‘prejudices’ against the community.
While filming the explorer experienced verbal threats, had a stranger defecate on his windscreen and saw children using slingshots to kill squirrels for dinner.
He also witnessed an argument with the police in Newquay, Cornwall, with officers attempting to move the group on from the site.
‘What’s all this about?’, one member of the group asks.
The officer replies: ‘Under common law, we’ve given you notice last night and asked you to leave.’
As temperatures rise, a member of the group responds by telling the officer they are on council land and they need a judge order to force them to leave.
He told the officer: ‘If you do it correctly and give us a proper time and day to go we will go’.
In a heated exchange a group of travellers pitched up at in Newquay, Cornwall told police that in one phone call they could ‘have 100 travellers here’ as back up
One traveller part of the group asked the police officer ‘you really honestly think you can do anything?’
As temperatures rise, a member of the group responds by telling the officer they are on council land and they need a judge order to force them to leave
Before adding: ‘You really honestly think you can do anything?
‘And if the police really want to get involved they need the whole of Newquay and Cornwall to come because in one phone call we will have 100 travellers here from all the camps from around here so you’ll cause the whole lot.
‘It’s going to achieve us staying where we are and you can’t do nothing about it. If they want to come and try and move out stuff, you need a lot more police.’
Ed, 49, who lives in Leicestershire, reacted sympathetically saying ‘these guys do get angry quite quickly but it is because this has happened time and time again’.
He added: ‘They have all said what they don’t like at all is that display of aggression.
‘Big bailiffs and reinforced and backed up by police, that is invariably causing it to escalate a little bit.’
While speaking about the confrontation with the police, one 11-year-old traveller, who is training to be a boxer, shows off his knuckle dusters while saying ‘F**k ’em’.
When asked if he liked his way of life, the boy, who no longer attends school, added: ‘It’s better, ain’t it? You get crammed up in a house and see the same spot for years and years.’
Adventurer Ed Stafford witnessed the altercation as he spent 60 days with Romani gypsies and Irish travellers across the UK for a Channel 4 documentary
While filming the explorer experienced verbal threats, had a stranger defaecate on his windscreen and saw children using slingshots to kill squirrels for dinner
In Manchester, he meets a group of gypsy lads who were using catapults to kill squirrels and pigeons before cooking them on a fire in the park for dinner.
Throughout the show Ed tackles issues, including negative stereotypes around the traveller community, along with toughening laws which mean they could face instant evictions or even prison if they stop in places illegally.
However he said he also encountered some of the stereotypes associated with the traveller community, witnessing some leaving litter, and others in which children are seen tearing around on noisy motorbikes.
He ultimately felt he had misjudged the group and says he felt a ‘great sense of pride’ after discovering his Romani gypsy heritage.
The discovery was made after he visited the Appleby Horse Fair in Cumbria – one of the biggest events in the traveller calendar.
During the annual fair, which attracts around 10,000 gypsies and travellers and 30,000 visitors, Ed meets a woman Sherrie, who decides to Google him and finds out his name is Lovell – a common gypsy name.
‘Welcome to the family,’ she declares, leaving Ed stunned.
During the show, he says: ‘I am realising it is a way of life, it’s a culture that stretches back generations so why should gyps give up all of that because it doesn’t fit into out ideal of how to live.’
Throughout the show Ed tackles issues, including negative stereotypes around the traveller community, along with toughening laws which mean they could face instant evictions or even prison if they stop in places illegally
However he said he also encountered some of the stereotypes associated with the traveller community, witnessing some leaving litter, and others in which children are seen tearing around on noisy motorbikes
Reflecting on his time on the road, he added: ‘I can’t believe how far I have come in so little time.
‘I have definitely come from what I would have describe as prejudice but what I would now describe as racist.
‘It’s not that the stereotypes of how gypsies behave have been smashed, it some respect they have been reinforced.
‘But to be able to live with them, cook on the fire beside the road, be apart of the freedom, that is their way of life, is liberating.
‘I understand more now and I feel like I more compassionate.’
