Notting Hill shows: Only prison will deter the thugs that roam our estates

It was just over 40 years ago that the English judicial system finally learned how to deal with violent intimidation against the post-war wave of new Commonwealth immigrants. By the late 1950s areas such as Notting Hill Gate in London had become the hunting ground of young thugs whose idea of a good night out was to terrify the local black population. The judiciary had seemed either uninterested or insufficiently motivated to stamp this out. Then one judge – and family pride motivates me to record that he was a maternal cousin – broke with the head-in-the-sand consensus: this was Mr Justice Cyril Salmon.

In September 1958 nine young men were found guilty in his court of what they had called "nigger hunting" – chasing black citizens around the streets of Notting Hill, while armed with iron bars and table legs. They were, said their defence lawyer, in attempted mitigation of their crimes, "victims of the society in which they live". As Time magazine recorded: "Justice Salmon was unimpressed. Said he: 'Everyone, irrespective of the colour of their skins, is entitled to walk through our streets in peace with their heads erect and free from fear...As far as the law is concerned you are entitled to think what you like, however foul your thoughts; to feel what you like, however brutal and debased your emotions; to say what you like, provided you do not infringe the rights of others or imperil the Queen's Peace. But once you translate your dark thoughts and brutal feelings into savage acts such as these, the law will be swift to punish you, and to protect your victims.'

"Justice Salmon forthwith sentenced all nine youths to four years' imprisonment. Shocked at the severity of the sentence, relatives and friends in the courtroom gasped in dismay, and burst into hysterical sobs outside. Two of the boys were so shaken they had to be helped down the 32 steps to their cells. But that night, all was quiet in Notting Hill." Read more
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