Hello and welcome to The Blackpool Lead.
Hard to miss this one if you’ve opened your phone over the last week.
In an incident condemned across the political sphere, a young black man was told to leave a park bench because there were women and children nearby who didn’t feel safe.
To quote directly: “They don’t feel safe with foreign men, sitting, staring at them on the thingy.”
Lancashire Constabulary says no crime was committed, a decision that has been condemned in today’s edition.
Blackpool briefing
🗳️ Don’t live your life on Facebook? Good for you, but you might have missed the result of the Claremont by-election on Thursday. We were there and our full report is available below.
🚔 A bin lorry crashed into three cars and a house in Cleveleys - with a 44-year-old man arrested on suspicion of drug-driving.
The smash happened at about 12.15pm on Friday, with the Enveco wagon hitting the porch of a home in Valeway Avenue after ploughing into one moving and two parked cars.
Firefighters freed a man from one of the vehicles involved - with photographs showing a heavily damaged grey Mercedes with its roof cut off - while specialists were called out to assess the house for structural damage.
📞 Tributes have been pouring in for Dame Esther Rantzen, whose helpline for older people moved to Blackpool a decade ago, following her death at the age of 86.
Age UK, which took over the running of The Silver Line in 2019, said Dame Esther’s work means “that tens of thousands of lonely older people have someone to talk to”.
It said: “It is a gift that will continue to keep giving to those in need of a reassuring voice during the day or night. The helpline’s work tackling loneliness continues, meaning Ether’s legacy will too.”
The Silver Line, whose patron is the Queen, was run locally from Wesham before its national launch in late 2013. It moved to Blackpool three years later.
Police take no action after young black man ordered to leave park bench by ‘patriots’
By Michael Holmes
A lack of police action against men who ordered a young black man to leave a Thornton park because nearby women and children were “scared” will embolden so-called “patriots”, it has been claimed.
Officers investigated after at least two men approached a youth, who was sitting on a park bench beside his push bike while looking at his phone, and told him he could not “sit here where the women and children are”.
In the interaction, which happened near the Church Road play area off Fleetwood Road North, a man filmed as he told the lad: “Can you just go round there, please? There are women and children on the park.
“Women and children don’t feel safe around here at the minute, that’s all.”
As the youth looked confused, the cameraman added: “They don’t feel safe with foreign men, sitting, staring at them on the thingy.”
But, with Lancashire Police telling The Blackpool Lead that no crime has been committed - taking a similar stance to when far-right figure Ryan Ferguson said “no blacks” would be welcome at a protest in the resort - there is now a risk that the men, reportedly part of a new group calling itself the Blackpool Patriot Platform, could be emboldened.
That is according to Brendan Bunting, a youth worker of almost 20 years who has spoken openly about his experiences growing up in Blackpool as someone who is mixed race.
In a now-deleted Facebook post which included the Thornton video, The Blackpool Patriot Platform reportedly wrote: “If you see any migrants hanging round your local areas please message the page and we will peacefully patrol these areas.”
Bunting, 46, said: “What the police don’t realise is that they will make this harder for themselves.
“That little gang of Blackpool Patriots are going to go out there as a mob - because that is what they are - and try to police Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre.
“The police have a chance to stamp on it and say that behaviour is unacceptable.”
Bunting, who was born in the 1970s, said that during the ‘80s, there would be “gangs, marauding like these, and they’d call it ‘P***-bashing’.
“That happened. It took place. I remember friends’ older brothers going out and doing that.”
He continued: “Thankfully, during the ‘90s things became more liberal and there was more tolerance.
“Things have gone back the other way now.”
Bunting described a statement by Lancashire Police, in which the force said hate crime “will not be tolerated” but the men involved in the Thornton video face no further action, as “wishy-washy” and “mealy-mouthed”.
“All it’ll do is empower racists to do things,” he warned.
The Blackpool Patriot Platform, which describes itself on Facebook as a “news & media website”, was set up on September 23 and attracted 436 followers in its first week.