Meet the travellers facing eviction

THIEVES who are dirty and rude is what most people think of when they think of Gypsies and Travellers in our society, says Sarah Hughes.

The friendly and articulate mother-of-five, who welcomes this reporter and the Courier photographer into her caravan home, does not blame those who carry this belief. She blames the perception built up of Gypsies in the media, on television - and even in certain song lyrics.

“People don’t class us as human beings. It’s not their fault - it’s because of how we are portrayed on TV and in the media. But we are only people.

“Travellers are always portrayed as thieves who are very dirty. You get used to it, but it is upsetting.”

Sarah and her family, along with 12 other families who are all related to one another, are “in shock”, she says, following a decision made by the Secretary of State for Local Government that they must pack up and leave the site that has come to be their home, off Kites Nest Lane in Beausale.

The Courier has been following the story surrounding this group of Romani Gypsies since they moved on to the greenfield land in May last year.

As they did not request planning permission until after moving onto the site, they had to apply retrospectively and this request was rejected by Warwick District Council in June 2010. But because the group appealed against the refusal, as well as a subsequent High Court order demanding that they leave, a public inquiry was held and that only reached a conclusion last month.

Sarah says: “We are just in shock.

“We hadn’t had any problems with anybody and the council didn’t have any negative ways against us. We were hoping we would get some kind of planning permission.

“When we first moved here, we had a few people coming and shouting and swearing over the hedge, but apart from that, nobody has bothered us and we haven’t bothered anybody.

“Often people don’t accept you if you’re a Gypsy, but the parents at school have been really nice.”

It is difficult to not draw comparisons with the situation faced by the Gypsies battling to stay at the Dale Farm site in Basildon, Essex, who this week were granted a temporary reprieve against their eviction, which has made national news and triggered a much wider debate.

While Sarah says she does not want to “go through the rigmarole they’re going through at Dale Farm”, she has no idea what is going to happen next.

She says: “We have got nowhere else to go. It’s not an option to just go. I don’t want to live on the side of a road or anything like that.”

The younger of Sarah’s five children, aged between eight and 14, are now settled and happy at a primary school, while she is waiting for a place in a secondary school for the eldest two.

She says: “My youngest daughter has just settled in now so we don’t want to have to move her again. I cannot read or write at all so I want my children to be at school.

“You just try to hold your head together because you don’t know what’s going on.

“Before coming here, we have spent time living in Gloucestershire, next to Sainsbury’s in Leamington and near Balsall Common. You get moved on.

“I could not even be registered at a doctor’s surgery until moving here because you need an address.”

Sarah has since found out that one of her daughters needs glasses, her husband has cholesterol in one eye and she herself has been diagnosed with clinical depression.

She says: “People say, you are not a traveller if you want a permanent base. But we want to live in a caravan so we can travel for a couple of weeks in the summer. It’s nice - you’re always with people. It’s not like being in a house.

“We are all family here. We want to try to keep together.

“If we had somewhere to live, we would not have come here in the first place.”