Twenty-one years ago this month, I had not long arrived at my desk at work when I had a call from my mum. My Great Aunt Winnifred was in ICU having been knocked to the ground by a mugger seeking to steal her handbag. I was the nearest relative to the hospital, so I jumped on a train and went to be by her bedside. Later in the day I was joined by a number of family members. Aunt Winnie had never married and had no children herself but it was testimony to her caring nature and the affection she was held in by her wider family that she had two of her nephews and one great nephew make the journey to be there. She did not regain consciousness and died the next day. At the time of the assault, Aunt Winnie, herself 77 years old had been helping an elderly neighbour aged 91 with her shopping. That was the kind of person she was.
Her assailant was eventually apprehended, charged and convicted. The story received local news coverage and even formed part of a documentary TV series on true crime. However, it didn’t get the attention from politicians and national media that we are seeing with some crimes today. I’ve reflected on that in the light of the attention on the Henry Nowak case.
I suspect that one reason is that 21 years ago, the political scene was not so fragmented and there was less of the kind of culture war and identity politics we are seeing now. However, I wonder too if it reflects her assailant’s name and description. Darren Paul Stanger was described as “white” and “with a London accent.”
Increasingly, the first response to any news of a horrific crime is people demanding to know the perpetrator’s ethnicity. Reports of violent sexual crimes committed by asylum seekers are used as arguments against asylum and immigration generally. My Auntie’s death did not meet the narrative, it was not useful to the argument.
Our concern as a wider family at the time was first for justice to be done for our aunt and secondly that we would have wanted her death to motivate change so that such crimes were less likely. We also wanted compassion and forgiveness towards her assailant. My hope for him would be that in prison he might have met chaplains who introduced him to Jesus. Even if her killer had a different profile, we would not have wanted her death to be used by people seeking to cause division and stir up hate.
Faithroots 