Welcome to St Helier?

Constable’s Comment, Town Crier, September 2024

When I stood for election in November 1996 I had a number of reasons for wanting to join the States Assembly: one reason in particular was my concern about the way visitors to Jersey were occasionally treated. 

I was running a language school in St Helier at the time, and some of my students reported to me that they had been subject to racially motivated abuse; then came the incident involving a group of Austrian students being chased by local young people through the town streets. Around that time there was a serious physical assault on one of my students in Liberation Square.

It is my desire to promote cooperation between people from different countries living in Jersey or visiting the Island which has led me to support new twinning relationships between our Parish and places such as Bad Wurzach in Germany and Funchal in Madeira.

Imagine my feelings then when I learnt that a visiting group of young musicians were subjected to this kind of treatment in July this year. They had stones thrown at them by a group of teenagers outside McDonald’s and were intimidated by them while they were unloading their instruments at the Jersey Arts Centre. 

Quite apart from being totally unacceptable, this has caused an enormous amount of distress to the young people on the receiving end of this antisocial behaviour, as it is often called, (and I realise that it is only a small minority who behave in this way), and what message does this send out to our visitors? And where are we failing as an Island if some of our young people believe that this is an appropriate way to behave towards strangers?