Letter: Traveller Trespass Should Be Made a Criminal Matter

Published on: 30 Aug, 2017
Updated on: 29 Aug, 2017

Nyree Lowndes

Gypsy Joe Hedges in his letter: This Is A Different World and A Different Type of Traveller says: “… I do not agree with the mess left behind by these so called Travellers. It’s a disgrace and a scar on the old English Traveller tradition.”

Yes! That’s the prime reason for Travellers being loathed. If only they would leave sites as they find them – clean – there would be so much less hostility.

Swift action to eject travellers illegally trespassing on private or public land is not possible, because the action of trespass is a civil, not a criminal, offence.

We should do what was so effectively done in Ireland: make trespassing a criminal matter. This would empower the police to eject the trespassers on pain of arrest.

I wonder if that is why so many travellers appear to be Irish? I suspect they come over here for the summer’s ‘travelling’ because they can no longer do so in their own country?