The Jewish Chronicle

'Comedy of errors' response to antisemitic bus abuse

September 23, 2014 10:36
1 min read

Last week, I witnessed a man spouting antisemitic abuse on a packed bus from Golders Green - and no-one lifted a finger to stop him.

When I reported the incident - while it was happening - to the bus driver, the Metropolitan Police and Transport for London, not one seemed remotely interested in dealing with the crime.

The response over the past week, since the incident was reported in the JC, has been instructive. The Met has fallen over itself to apologise and says it will learn from its mistakes.

As for TfL, however: Steve Burton, TfL's director of enforcement and on-street operations said that they would "work with the police to investigate these claims". He then said it would take "up to 10 days" for my complaint to be dealt with.

At the time of writing - ten days on - I have heard nothing further, despite my attempts to elicit a response.

The police originally refused to apprehend the abuser because the bus "was moving". They have apologised and promised to investigate, with officers from three different units contacting me. One inspector, Graham Skitt, of the Metropolitan Police's safer transport team, said the police's failure to respond to my 999 call was the result of "a comedy of errors".

He explained that officers had been dispatched but were given the wrong information and could not locate the bus.

"I can only apologise," he said.

Subsequently police told me that they had requested CCTV footage of the man from the bus, but it was unclear when it would be available.

I was contacted by a spokesperson at the Mayor of London's office, who assured me that the matter had been "escalated to the highest level".

He said: "We want to assure the Jewish community the zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism is taken seriously."

I have been inundated with messages of from people - such Jonathan Arkush, vice president of the Board of Deputies, MP Mike Freer and Jonathan Sacerdoti, spokesman for the Campaign Against Antisemitism - horrified at what I witnessed.