Warning: This Q&A contains references to racist language and attitudes.
Question:
What might constitute a chant of a racialist nature for the purposes of the Act? Are there any cases on this issue?
Answer:
The case of DPP v Stoke on Trent Magistrates Court (2002) is a typical example of what might fall within the provisions of section 3 of the Football (Offences) Act 1991, which creates the offence to engage or take part in chanting of an indecent or racialist nature at a designated football match.
For the purposes of the offence -
- chanting means the repeated uttering of any words or sounds (whether alone or in concert with one or more others); and
-
of a racialist nature means consisting of or including matter which is threatening, abusive or insulting to a person by reason of his colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.
In a football match between Port Vale and Oldham Athletic, R was a member of a group of supporters who chanted, "you're just a town full of Pakis"; a chant directed towards the opposition supporters.
The District Judge decided that the chant was a trivial verse and the expression 'Paki' was nothing more than a description of a person just as a 'Brit', 'Aussie' or 'Kiwi' might be referred to and was an abbreviated form of the word 'Pakistani.' He acquitted Ratcliffe. The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed.
In the Divisional Court it was held that the purpose of the chant was to insult people from Oldham, irrespective of their origin, but implicit in the chant was that Oldham was inferior to other places because of the ethnic or nationality mix in the town. Incorporation of the word 'Paki' in the chant illustrated that it was people who originated from Pakistan who were the cause of that inferiority. The term 'Paki' was used in a racially abusive or derogative sense and the use of the word 'just' in the chant was evidence of that intention.
The appeal of the Director of Public Prosecutions was allowed, the chant was racist.
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