Introduction
Last year Nadine White, proudly touted as the first “race correspondent” in Britain, published an article on “institutional racism within the police” in Wales. The core of the article covered the case of Siyanda Mngaza, whose crowdfunded “Free Siyanda” campaign alleged that she was “jailed for defending herself in a vicious racial attack”, raising over £26,000. Meanwhile, a petition calling for her freedom achieved 571,000 signatories, alleging that she was “racially abused and beaten by a group of people”, only to be the one sentenced to jail “for defending themselves”. Amongst those who offered their support to her are the Welsh TUC, Lee Jasper’s BAME Lawyers 4 Justice, Operation Black Vote and Kill the Bill.
What do they say happened?
Nadine White’s account claims that Siyanda was “convicted by an all-white jury” of “causing grievous bodily harm with intent during a fight involving three people in May 2019”, although her lawyers maintained that she was “was defending herself in a racist attack”. Siyanda was on holiday at a campsite with her boyfriend’s family in Wales but after a “misunderstanding quickly escalated”, she was called a “jungle c***” and “black b****”. Siyanda is only 4ft10, with a physical disability, whilst the others in the fight were older and two of them were men.
Prior to sentencing, Siyanda told the Independent that she felt dehumanised, that “people of colour aren’t always treated fairly by the police”, that “it’s difficult to know that a young black woman’s voice is not cared about, not heard”, that her “life would be ruined” by a custodial sentence, suggested that “she has been given the harshest-possible charge because she’s black”, that she feels “like I’m subhuman to them like my life doesn’t matter”, and that this “wouldn’t happen if this was a 21-year-old white girl”. Meanwhile Camilla Mngaza, her mother, is quoted as saying that “by sentencing her, they have destroyed her life chances…she has been failed by the system because of the colour of her skin.”
White quotes a Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson and a Dyfed-Powys Police spokesperson, who note that Siyanda had given her evidence to the police and to the jury, and that a verdict had been reached, which meant the case was now closed. A formal complaint was made over the case and a review concluded, presumably without finding any issue. Siyanda’s appeal was also dismissed.
The official Free Siyanda website meanwhile claims that, “without any provocation, Siyanda was racially abused and physically assaulted by adults much older than her”, that she “was unable to run and could not flee from her attackers” due to a recent surgery on her leg, that the five witnesses included the three “attackers” and two of their family members, that Siyanda “suffered terrible injuries which are documented”, and that the police failed to investigate whether there was a racial element to the fight. In addition, they say that at the Appeals court in 2021 the judges accepted that Siyanda’s face was stamped on, leaving an imprint, but they still declined the appeal.
The petition on change.com states that “Siyanda was attacked in a racially motivated incident by two men and a woman”, that they “threatened to kill her, calling her racial slurs”, before running towards her and one of them punching her. At the time, Siyanda “was holding a glass in her hand which caused a minor cut (that didn't even require stitches) to the attacker”. The men then dragged her to the ground and stomped on her head “in a vicious attack”. When Siyanda managed to get free, she hid herself from “the attackers”, who called the police and “falsely accused Siyanda of perpetrating an attack on them”. The petition adds that Siyanda was found guilty by “an all-white jury” and that “her case shows the extent of systemic racism within our courts”.
Lee Jasper of Blaksox and BAME Lawyers for Justice (who was also the Director for Policing and Equalities when Ken Livingstone was Mayor of London, and previously claimed that “no black person in the UK can be racist”) claimed that “holidaying, whilst black in the UK, can be a traumatic experience” and that to travel outside of “diverse communities” means meeting “the racism of the 1950s”. In these “backwater areas” you need to “risk assess” and have a “contingency plan”.
He alleges that after drinking around a campfire, Siyanda returned from bed to try and calm an argument, only to be “verbally attacked and physically confronted by a drunk white woman”, who Jasper chooses to call “Karen” in reference to the racist meme, who “pushed and punched” her. At this point the two men joined in. Siyanda told Jasper that, “I was in fear of my life” and “I had no choice but to defend myself”. He says that she told him she then tried to get help only to be rejected by other campers. When she met police officers, she “was immediately handcuffed” and put into a police car, whilst “a white man was shouting racist abuse at her as a larger group of hostile whites gathered around the car”. Jasper blames this on “institutionalised racism” in “the racist hinterlands of Brexit Britain”.
None of these sources provide any comment from the purported attackers.
What do others say happened?
However, reading the local press stories, a very different picture emerges of the events of that night. The South Wales Echo reveals that Siyanda and her partner had also been drinking that night and that she was said to be more “intoxicated” than the rest. She then became involved in a confrontation with another camper, Courtney Rees, at which point Victoria Hatcher intervened, as she considered Rees as a niece. Hatcher, the so-called “Karen”, was also camping with her partner and three children. At the time Siyanda had in her hand a mason jar, which she used to threaten Hatcher, telling her that “if she put a hand on you you would put the jar in her face or smash the glass on her”, which she then did “with some force”. Hatcher was knocked out and says that her partner’s friend had to drag Siyanda off her.
A friend of Hatcher, who works as a fireman, then removed the glass from her face and as “there was blood everywhere, someone took off their shirt to stop the bleeding”. Hatcher’s three children had been asleep but hearing the commotion, the eldest came out and saw her “in a pool of blood” which caused him to scream and “affected him massively”. Hatcher says she can “no longer feel comfortable looking in the mirror”, that the scar it left is a “constant reminder”, that she suffers from flashbacks, and that the sound of smashing glass “frightens” her and makes her anxious in public places. Her eldest son suffers from “night terrors” as a result and is “crying at night”. She has also said that she fears being attacked, after social media posts had been directed at her and her family after the incident.
The press report quotes Siyanda’s defence lawyer as saying that she’d been “getting on very well” with Hatcher earlier in the evening, that the incident “was over in seconds”, and that her defence was that her actions weren’t “premeditated” but were instead an “excessive self-defence”. However, this was not accepted as the threat to use the glass was seen as evidence of premeditation. Siyanda was sentenced to four and a half years, of which half would be in custody and the other half on license, with a restraining order to prevent her from going near Hatcher or referring to her on social media.
Other articles in the South Wales Guardian and the Brecon and Radnor Express confirm many of the details and add new ones, such as Hatcher having suffered a “two to three inch laceration to her forehead and swelling to the side” which the police said were “significant facial injuries”, with the police praising the sentence for reflecting “what a nasty incident this was, and the significant impact it had on the victim. There is a petition in support of Hatcher and the conviction of Siyanda, which currently has only 405 signatures.
Comment
The difference between these two sets of accounts is very noticeable. The pro-Siyanda ones all ignore the injuries suffered by Hatcher, allege racism which the court clearly didn’t find convincing, and present Siyanda as the one under attack rather than as the one who struck first. Several make reference to the “all white” jury which, aside from ignoring that demographically Wales is so white that this is almost inevitable, seems to intimate that their race was a factor in finding Siyanda guilty; if so, that would be both bigotry against white people and would preclude the operation of current British justice in favour of one based on racial makeup. If that is not the intention, then it is hard to know why such a detail would be included.
The selective choice of details must be either deliberate or the result of poor research, as the other facts are easily available. For instance, the South Wales Echo article was published on the 18th of March, whilst Nadine White’s article was published on the 29th of March; yet the latter omits all of the the details which might reflect badly on Siyanda, not even mentioning the drinking which contributed to the fight. She also quotes Siyanda saying that “she has been given the harshest-possible charge because she’s black”, even though the Sentencing Council description of grievous bodily harm with intent is clearly applicable (that she used a weapon in a premeditated fashion). If the justice system in Wales really was so cartoonishly racist, then Siyanda could have faced the maximum penalty of life or the higher sentence of 16 years; instead she was sentenced to only four and a half years, with only half of that served in custody.
It’s true that the Appeal court accepted that Siyanda also suffered violence but their rejection of her appeal shows that she was not the victim. It was she who issued the threat, she who attacked, and she who inflicted the most grievous injury. It is also she who has subsequently been given a platform in a national newspaper and the support of several organisations, whilst Hatcher has not.
The lack of remorse or interest paid to the actual victim, the repeated framing of the case through a racial angle, and the selective choice of details reflect badly on Siyanda and her defenders. Although it is they who accuse others of racism, their failings raise the question of their own racial bias. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a race correspondent or organisations with a strong racial focus tend to approach things through the prism of race, even when it is a drunken fight, and to impose their pre-existing conceptions on it. Instead the focus should be on the real victim, who not only had to suffer injury but to see her drunken attacker lionised.