A SCOTTISH Scouts group travelling to a camp in a Welsh town suffered racist abuse after being mistaken for asylum seekers.
On Wednesday, August 6 a bus containing Scouts that had travelled down from Scotland to the CRAI Scout Activity Park in Newbridge were the target of "racially aggravated" abuse.
The bus was seen travelling through the Newbridge area and contained children who from non-white ethnicities.
The bus, which contained young children and others under 18, was filmed and the footage uploaded to several Newbridge Facebook groups, where it was the target of online abuse.
Scout Cymru and Gwent Police had the video removed from online platforms.
Scout Cymru posted the following statement: “CRAI Scout Activity Park is an inclusive and welcoming campsite and activity centre in the South Wales Valleys offering a range of outdoor activities for youth and community groups.
“We are aware of a racially aggravated incident targeting under-18s who were leaving after visiting our activity centre and we are working closely with the police to address this situation.
“We are committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of everyone on site and will continue to take immediate and robust action against any behaviour that threatens this.”
Addressing the incident Newbridge Councillor Adrian Hussey said: “We don’t need this type of hatred in our society.
“The police are looking into it because we don’t want it in our local villages and we don’t want it anywhere. All they want to do is divide people and spread hate.”
Chief Superintendent Jason White of Gwent Police said: “We’re aware of several posts responding to a social media video published earlier this week in relation to a visiting Scouts group to Newbridge.
“The video was removed but some of the posts contained inappropriate and offensive language and enquiries into the nature of the posts are ongoing.
“While that work takes place, there are some mistruths circulating on social media which we’d like to correct.
“The group featured in the video were visiting from another part of the country to attend a frequently used Scout camp in Newbridge and many of the people in the video are children.
“The site is not used to house anyone on a permanent basis. The site is used by our dog handlers to train our police dogs when not used for visits and our officers are not guarding the location.
“So, with that in mind, we’re asking everyone to consider the tone and sentiment of their language but also for people to think twice about what they might read online and look for trusted voices within our communities.
“If you do have concerns, then you can call us on 101, send us a message on social media, make a report via our website or speak to one of our officers if you see them.”
