The lost boys

In his latest election broadcast earlier this week, Liberal Democrat London mayoral candidate Brian Paddick joined a long line of politicians and dug up the 15 year old corpse of Stephen Lawrence to use as a totem to support his political ambitions. By doing so, Paddick has succeeded in winning the rather dubious endorsement of Lawrence's “best friend" Duwayne Brooks who was showering Brian with praise in Wednesday's Evening Standard. This, following Stephen's mother Doreen Laurence's recent intervention on behalf of her old chum Ken Livingstone was evidence enough, if such were needed, that the Lawrence industry still retains significant grip on the balls of British politics.

Whilst watching the pantomime, I was reminded of another lost boy, but one who's name seldom if ever crosses the lips of and mainstream politician or Media pundit. A boy with a shy, but compelling, smile a loving family, and a life time of possibilities ahead of him, and one who, unlike Stephen Lawrence, has been proven by a court of law, to have been the actual victim of a brutal racially motivated murder.

The boy I was reminded of was one whom the media would prefer we did not mention, who's family do not have our nations leaders' private numbers on speed-dial, and who's tragic loss, although an embarrassment to those who wish to form our opinions, far more accurately sums up the truth about racial violence in this country, than does much exploited death of Stephen Lawrence.

That boy is Kriss Donald

Kriss Donald died on a cold March day in 2004, on a patch of waste ground, near a walkway, behind Celtic Supporters club in the Pollockshields area of Glasgow, and his last hours on this earth were not kind ones.

As was later described in court, this defenceless, slightly built, 15 year old schoolboy experienced extreme terror and pain, before his young life was snuffed out by the violent men who had randomly selected him the victim of their ugly racial hatred.

It was Kriss' fatal bad luck that he innocently crossed the path of racially motivated Asian killers Daanish Zahid, Imran Shahid, Zeeshan Shahid, Mohammed Mustaq, and their accomplice Zahid Mohammed (who later told the court that, seeing revenge for some earlier slight by a white person, the gang of thugs drove around the area looking for anyone young and white in order to "chop them up and take their eyes out and stab them"). Kriss was out walking with his friend Jamie Wallace, when a group of Asians leapt out of a Mercedes, attacked them both, dragged Kris into the car, and drove off. As Jamie escaped, he heard one the kidnappers say. "You'll be next".

As he was being driven away, Kriss, who was a mere child, was heard to call out “what have I done? I'm only 15!” and we can only imagine the terror that 15 year old youngster experienced whilst held captive, and presumably threatened and abused, over the following hours while he was taken on a 200 mile journey before being brought back to Glasgow. When his assailants were unable to find a suitable house to take him to, they pulled up on waste land where they would take his life. Dragging their slight and terrified prey out of the car, Kriss's killers beat him, causing internal injuries, including damaged organs and at least one smashed rib, before holding him over a log and stabbing him 13 times, dousing him with petrol, and then whilst he was still alive set him alight before leaving him to burn to death.

Kriss died a terrible death, apart from the internal injuries and stab wounds, his young body suffered 70% burns, and for no reason other than because he was white. It has been established beyond question that Kriss was an entirely innocent victim, chosen randomly because of the colour of his skin.

The racial motive was made quite clear in court when Advocate deputy, Mark Stewart, asked Mohammed, if it was it an Asian boy, a Chinese boy, a black boy they sought? Mohammed replied "A white boy".

Kriss Donald's death must rank as one of the most brutal in recent years, albeit certainly not the only one of its type . However, one other thing which makes Kriss's murder stand out is the muted and begrudging reaction it caused amongst the media and politicians. If we feel contempt and revulsion for Kriss's killers, what should we feel for elected politicians such as Gordon Jackson, the Member of the Scottish Parliament with responsibility for the area where Kriss was killed if he, as is alleged, sought to belittle the seriousness of the event by commenting that young men got into "bother" from time to time in every city.

The media is no different in it's indifference to white male victims, it has been mentioned before, but if you go to the BBC news web site and put the name of Kriss Donald, the victim of one of the most brutal, and sadistic race hate crimes to have occurred in Britain in recent decades, into the search engine, you will get a total of 4 results, put in the name of Stephen Lawrence, and you will get 122.

So silent has the media been about the killing of Kris Donald, that in all likelihood were you to ask ten randomly chosen members of the public who he was, you would be lucky if one out of the ten had ever heard of him. Yet ask the same ten who the most famous victim of racial violence in the UK, and almost certainly they will all say Stephen Lawrence.

However, let us be clear, apart from a coroner's jury, no court of law has ever found that Stephen Lawrence was killed by racially motivated whites. That Lawrence was the victim of a racist murder is mainly the verdict of the media, a bunch of politicians and the usual suspects in the race industry. They may claim it is true, because they say it is, but that is not the way justice works in this, or any other civilised country. Under British justice a person remains innocent until proven guilty, whatever Billy Bragg, Ken Livingstone or the editor of the Daily mail may think.

The verdict of an inquest jury is compelling, but, in law, it does not constitute a finding of guilt, and in the knowledge that their verdict will not convict, inquest juries have been known to arrive at some unusual and crowd pleasing decisions.

Likewise a newspaper headlines declaring “Murderers” may be dramatic, but they prove only that the Daily Mail wants to sell more copies. The Mail was particularly dishonest when they published the suspect photos under the headline, “Murderers” followed by the line “sue us if we are wrong”, given that even the most innocent would need at least a £1million in the bank before they could even to think about suing a newspaper.

I hold no brief for the five men accused of murdering Stephen Lawrence, they may well be guilty, and they certainly do not seem very pleasant people. However, under British law being unpleasant is not evidence of guilt. Various trials and a private prosecution have failed to achieve a conviction and, even though the government gone so far as to abandon the double jeopardy protection we have had since Magna Carter (almost certainly with this case in mind) the verdict of racially motivated homicide remains nothing more that an allegation.

This is not so, in the case of Kriss Donald where that verdict of racially aggrivated murder was proven beyond reasonable doubt. Yet it is the alleged crime, not the proven one which is used to define racial violence in this country. Why could this be? Let us consider the possibilities:

Cases often gain more notoriety because of the brutality involved, however, in this again the Lawrence murder does not even compare to the Donald killing in terms of the savagery involved. All accounts of the attack on Stephen Lawrence describe a swift and sudden attack, involving two fatal stab wounds, which was over very quickly. All three witnesses at the bus stop at the time of the alleged attack said in statements that it was sudden and short; none was later able to identify any of the suspects.

All murders are awful acts of barbarity, and nobody deserves to die, however, in terms of the cruelty of the act, Stephen's murder was over in moments, whilst Kriss's killing dragged on over hours and involved horrific suffering and torture.

Yet it is Stephen, not Kriss who is granted premier victim status, it is Stephen's family who receive the honours it is to Stephen for whom the shrines are built and it is the memory of Stephen Lawrence our cynical politicians evoke when they want to become elected.

The Murder of Stephen Lawrence resulted in national soul searching, countless enquiries and reports, not to mentions allegations of so called institutional racism (a condition probably best defined as being slightly more suspicious of black people because of their disproportionate involvement in crime) and the expenditure of many £millions of public money.

Meanwhile the name of Kriss Donald fades from the public conciousness.

Some might try to argue that it is the unsolved nature of the Lawrence case and indeed the acquittals which makes it a cause célèbre, but that can not stand up to scrutiny, given the number of other unsolved inter-racial murders there have been, or those with unexpected acquittals, such as in the case of 19 year old Terry Gregory who was murdered in Woolwich in 2003, for the crime of picking up a brolly, full details of which can be read, together very detailed accounts of race crime and race criminals in Britain over the last few decades on the excellent I am an Englishman blog.

No, Stephen Lawrence did not become the most famous British murder victim since Earl Mountbatten merely because his murder is unsolved, and politicians do not worship the shrine of St Stephen or grovel at the feet of the blessed Doreen because the cases against those accused of killing her son kept collapsing

The Lawrence case became the phenomenon it did for no other reason than the fact that he fitted the requisite profile of a politically correct race crime victim and his alleged killers were the media's wet dream stereotype white racist thugs. To put it another way, those accused of killing Lawrence are “Perfect offenders” ,to quote African American Duke University professor Wahneema Lubiano in relation to the wrongly charged, and very white, defendants in the Duke lacrosse false rape case which got PC America's knickers in such a twist in 2006 until they were exonerated the following year.

There are marked similarities between the way the UK media use the Stephen Lawrence case and the US media tried to use the Duke lacrosse case, until that pesky little word “innocent” spoilt all their fun, and the truth had nothing to do with it.

The murder of Kriss Donald on the other hand reveals a truth which those who shout most loudly about racial violence do not wish to admit, hence it is a case they try to hide and hope we will forget.

The truth which innocent young Kriss's murder exposes is the all too often the victims of race hate crimes are the young white males whom it is so fashionable to portray as villainous racists whilst the main perpetrators are those whom the community cohesion monitors would have us believe are the eternal victims.

It was not white Englishmen who tore a frightened 15 year old child from his friends and his loving family, it was Asian immigrants who did that and who put him through hours of terror and inflicted tortures on his young body which we can only start to imagine. To satisfy their hatred, his future was stolen, Kriss will never become a lover, a husband, a father, a grandfather or anything else that shyly handsome innocent young boy ever dreamed of or hoped to be, and they did it to him for no other reason than that he was white.

We must not allow the lies of political correctness to hide that truth, or as importantly, ever cause us ever to forget Kriss Donald.

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Hat Tip: I am an Englishman