Now Updated: Rasta Elder Thrown Off Coach Despite Having Valid E-Ticket.

Most of us will remember the case of Rasta Judah 68 years old, a police community worker from Bristol, with a 30 year track record of working with police, who was himself was arrested and tasered, by Avon and Somerset police, in January 2017. Well it appears, this i's not an isolated case, in fact, we are seeing increasing numbers of both the young and elderly, being unfairly harassed by police officers.

Now we hear of the disgusting treatment of a 58-year-old man, Gilbert Watt, making his way to work, from Cardiff to London in the early hours of 28.01.2019 was summarily thrown off the coach, by South Wales police, despite having a valid ticket.

Please sign and share the petition calling for justice for Mr Gilbert Watt here....

Mr Gilbert Watt and Hilary Brown. 

His long time partner. Ms Hilary Brown, had purchased an e-ticket for Gilbert Watt, a six-foot Rastafarian black man, to return to London Victoria Coach Station from Cardiff, Sophia Gardens. It's a journey been making every weekend for two years without any problems.

Gilbert was lucky, his partner just so happens to be Hilary Brown, a long time rights campaigner now successful and now business woman. Hilary is a proud Welsh black woman and more importantly owner of Virgo Legal Services Ltd, with offices in both in Wales and London.

Hilary had dropped of Gilbert at Cardiff coach station, at around 02.20am. As usual he and his partner said their goodbyes and Hilary then left and he attempted to board the Coach.

The coach driver of the London bound coach was about to check his ticket and out of nowhere another driver, claiming to be management, instructed the London coach driver not to let Gilbert on the Coach. When challenged as to why by the London driver, he was told that Gilbert did not have a "paper" ticket.

Gilbert continued to state that he did not need a paper ticket, as he had an e-ticket, a ticket he had used, every weekend for the last two years.

As Gilbert was making his case, the manager/driver was becoming enraged and demanding that he be refused entry to the coach.

National Express: No Black's Allowed On Our Buses. 

Gilbert boarded the coach, and why not, he had every right to do so. He had a valid ticket and had made the same journey 1000 times previously, without any problems. He needed to be in London to start work at that morning.

The driver of the London coach then approached Gilbert now on the coach and said " the manager said this coach cannot leave Cardiff, with you on it."

Gilbert, now quite shocked and alarmed, calmly stated again, that he had a valid ticket and needed to be in work in the morning and was staying on the Coach. Gilbert was told he had to leave the coach and although he explained he had to get to work for Monday morning. Despite his pleas he was not advised by the manager, that he could have simply bought a new ticket, from the driver. That was not offered nor was he advised, though we now know, this is standard practice.

Instead he was told in no uncertain terms, to get off the coach. He was advised that his only option was to catch the next coach, resulting in him being very late for work and losing a full days pay.

The driver then informed him that the police were being called to remove him from the Coach.

In the freezing cold, in Cardiff bus station, in the early hours of the morning, two police vans arrive with 4 uniformed officers.

They boarded the coach and Gilbert showed them his phone and the ticket reference number (which is all that is needed).

The police went, up and down, back and forth between Gilbert and the manager/driver and bizarrely, despite having a valid ticket, Gilbert was then ordered off the coach by the police.

Not knowing what to do, Gilbert rang his partner and she arrived at the Coach station to find that the police refused to let Gilbert back on the Coach which had by this time left, leaving Gilbert stranded 150+ miles away from where he needed to be to get to work.

Gilberts partner then asked police officers why they had insisted that Gilbert get off the Coach. One Police officer stated that Gilbert showed the driver an incorrect reference number. Gilberts partner then immediately took Gilberts phone off the police officer and showed the officer the Gilbert had the correct reference number and shown to the drive, and that is all that is legally required.

She further demonstrated to the police officers, that she had purchased the ticket and had sent a copy of it to Gilbert and showed the officer the email and reference number sent her home phone, and then her message forwarding onto phone onto Gilbert.

A police officer took the phone, and showing it to another employee of National Express, returned stating that as Gilbert's partner had purchased the ticket, then Gilbert would not be able to travel with that ticket, as it is not in his name.

By this time it was nearly 3.00am Gilbert's partner now getting agitated and told the police quite clearly that in they had failed to establish the facts in this matter and had treated Gilbert appallingly simply because he was a Black man

All the officers disagreed with Gilbert and his partner. They were all asked for their collar numbers. The female officer gave Gilbert's partner gave all their numbers, as the male officers, having been challenged about their racism, were now reluctant to speak to her directly.

I took the time to have a look looked at National Express website, on the FAQs section, in response to a question about individual names on tickets which stated the following;

"Having an incorrect name on your ticket won't affect your journey, as our drivers only look at the validity of your ticket."

Even if, the police officers believed that Gilbert's ticket was invalid, why was he summarily removed from the coach, instead of being offered the alternative of purchasing another ticket, an option clearly articulated on their website?

It's precisely this kind of incident, that on any other occasion can go tragically wrong. Had Gilbert had a different temperament, was a much younger man say, then this encounter could have altogether different and potentially been much more serious.

It is these kinds of incidents, that continue to alienate black communities from the police, and reinforce the notion that racism in Britain, is seeping into every aspect of our lives.

 It was Hilary who  collected him in the middle of nowhere, and knowing the law in detail, she knew what his rights were. 

Now imagine if Gilbert had been 21 and alone in Cardiff on that bitterly cold morning?

And what of National Express Coaches, what will be their response? My view, what it's worth, is that the offending manager should be suspended, investigated, disciplined and sacked with immediate effect.

We keep seeing repeated example of this everyday racism, that imprisons, infuriates and angers black communities nationwide. When we complain, we’re the bad guys, when we stay silent then there is no racism.

Yet everyday racism is increasing, new stories come to light every single day, whether it's kids being banned from school because of their hairstyles, black and Asian people being refused job interviews, because of their names, police stop and searches that go tragically wrong, these are the everyday isims and schisms we continually face as a community.

We spend our lives in this country being routinely disbelieved by white people. Everyday question, everyday disbelief, everyday challenged, it cannot go on.

As for Gilbert, well he should now be handsomely compensated for this gross infraction of his human rights, his embarrassment, and any subsequent loss of income earnings he suffered, and all of this should be paid immediately by both the South Wales Police and the National Express Coach company.

Please sign and share the petition calling for justice for Mr Gilbert Watt here....

Update: The National Express Manager, when initially asked for his name, at the time of the incident, by Mr Watt's partner, Ms  Hilary Brown, lied and gave a false name. 

The day after the incident, we were able to ascertain the mans real name. Why did he lie ? 

British Black History: We didn’t all arrive on the #Windrush

British Black History: We didn’t all arrive on the #Windrush My Kru (tribal name) African grandfather from Sierra Leone/Liberia arrived in Liverpool in 1911.

The Kru nation was what both Sierra Leone  and Liberia, were called before the UK in 1787 and the US in 1882 invaded. The Kru fought against the invading armies of the US and the UK who were manned by freed African slaves. The Kru fought both. Imagine Kru having to fight freed African slaves, recruited into the imperial armies of the UK and the US and being sent to clear the Kru of their land, so the west could create homelands settlements for freed Africans?

The Kru people were said to be incapable of being made slaves. It’s said they’d either kill themselves or kill the white slavers at any given opportunity. They were considered as being impossible to break into slavery.  So the Kru fought against both the invading Imperial armies of the West and had to kill freed Africans recruited into the UK and US armies to resettle on Kru homelands.

Tom Jasper 

My Granddad arrived in Liverpool as a stowaway away aged 15 and was sent back on the next ship. He hid on another ship in Freetown and came right back. He was the original deportee.

#Kru people settled in Liverpool, Manchester and Cardiff, Britain’s oldest black communities established first African welfare Assoc. He became Chairman of the Kru Club in Manchester a association dedicated to welfare support of Kru. Also curiously Grandad had a blue spot tattooed on the middle of his forehead. 

The name Jasper was the name given to him by the British merchant navy, we've never been able to trace his real name.

They lived in the North Manchester area, of Cheetham Hill, Waterloo Road. It's an area where I have most of my first childhood memories.

Grandad's British Merchant Seaman travel logs are fascinating insight into the breadth and scale of British imperial trade of the day.

What I’ve found fascinating is Grandad role as chair of the Manchester #KruClub.

The minutes show they tracked down errant husbands. White working class wives would complain of husbands and fathers going missing or not paying for children. The Association would find them, force them back to the family home and ensure they lived up to their responsibilities. It was considered not the Kru way to abandon their families. It was considered a disgrace on the whole community.

Abandoned or widowed wives would be entitled to weekly payments from the #KruClub. The Club also arbitrated tribal and legal disputes.  They organised seaside trips, christenings, weddings and funerals. They organised community self defence, often in Manchester with poor Jewish communities, to protect themselves from racist attacks and petitioned Government of the day for equal rights and justice way before the 1950’s and the Windush arrived. Granddad died when I was five and I lived with him and my Grandmother. 

These Africans are Britain’s oldest black communities. The real pioneers of Black Britain.

Dorothy Jasper 

Now my English Grandmother was born in Manchester workhouse in 1901. She was from a reasonably well off Victorian family who abandoned her.  The conditions in 1901 Manchester Workhouse were appalling. From workhouse to the convent Grandmother had an extraordinary hard life.

We are told she married in her early 20's to an Irish Republican.

I’m told that her first husband died, after being battered by police and flung into the Manchester Ship Canal. They had one child a son.

My Grandmother then met my African grandfather and he married and adopted Grandmas only child too. She worked at Manchester Co-Op HQ as a cleaner for many years.

They married in the 1920's and I can only imagine the racism they faced at that time in Edwardian Britain. It must have been horrendous.

She hated five things, the royal family, Tories, Churchill, social injustice and Mick MacManus, a wrestling star of the 1960's. She was a Northern matriarch of 4'6 with a fierce determination to protect her children and confront any racism they faced head on.

She was the radical Granddad was much more laid back, while she would slay dragons for the family and that is the history of the Jaspers.

So my roots are solidly African and working class. Tracing these histories is a joy and reflects the story of the British Empire.

Notice Granddads perfectly ‘concked’ hair all the rage in 1920s Britain. As for Grandma she was a beauty. 

British ‪#BlackHistory goes way back and it’s time the African pioneers were given as much attention as the Windrush generation. ‪#BHM17