In what has been described as a racist attack, a Portuguese mother and her daughter have been pelted with eggs by a group who set on them after hearing them speaking Portuguese on their way to a Leyton health centre.
RTP news highlights the story today, suggesting the two victims have been so traumatised by the incident that they daren’t leave the house and are “considering returning to Portugal”.
The attack was communicated to police, who took notes, the woman’s husband told RTP, but then ‘archived’ the case due to “lack of proof”.
The problem with this explanation is that there were “so many CCTV cameras” that the family is now wondering whether the British authorities simply did not want to find the perpetrators.
Reacting to the case, Secretary of State for the Communities José Luís Carneiro told RTP that “there are Portuguese families living difficult moments in various parts of the world, not just London”.
The family meantime has asked not to be named.
Indeed, the woman has been so badly affected, that she could not even speak to RTP, says the station.
The family has been living in the U.K. for the last 20 years.
According to RTP, health centre staff in Leyton have confirmed that similar attacks happen everyday, not only to Portuguese people but to others.
The husband however is convinced it was a racist attack because nothing was actually stolen from the two women, and one of the group involved, a young man in his 20s holding a bottle of beer, is understood to have shouted: “They are not English”.
By natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
Article by kind permission of Portugal Resident
