BLM organisers in Cheshire threatened in local Facebook group
Organisers of Black Lives Matter protests in Sandbach, Cheshire, have been threatened and “doxxed” (had private information maliciously published online) – in a Facebook group for which one of the town’s councillors was an administrator.
Comments in the Facebook group, Sandbach Sarcastic Society, which has more than 5,300 members, included details of where one organiser was said to live. One person suggested sending the details to the English Defence League, while another posted a picture of the Ku Klux Klan.
David Jack, who was elected as an independent councillor to Sandbach town council in 2019, was one of four administrators of the Facebook group.
The posts and comments have been removed from the group, Jack is no longer an administrator, and the group has been made private. Jack is not known to have made any abusive or threatening comments in the group.
Katie Unnithan, 20, has held three socially distanced BLM protests in Sandbach, where she grew up. The first took place near the cenotaph in the town centre.
“People came up to us shouting that segregation was a good thing, that ‘All lives matter’, and one guy said he’d come back with a shotgun if we touched the cenotaph,” she said. “It was the most bizarre and horrible experience. When I posted about it online, people really went mad. Sandbach has a problem and it’s exemplified in that Facebook group.”
Beneath a screenshot of a post in which Unnithan referred to an upcoming protest, one comment said: “I’ll bring my raincoat just incase [sic],” with a picture of the Klan beneath.
The incident has been reported to the police. A spokesperson for Cheshire Constabulary said: “We have received a complaint following a Facebook post in the Sandbach area. An investigation in relation to the post is under way and enquiries are ongoing.”
Also shared to the group, on 14 July, was what Jack referred to as his “open letter to all sandbach [sic] town councillors and the press”, in which he described BLM as “an ultra anarchist movement” with “an agenda for marxism and anarchy” and suggested that supporting the movement was “a slip down the path to dictatorship and facsim [sic]”.
In another recent post, Jack referred to BLM supporters as “racists”, writing: “BLM posts are now banned. Stop giving oxygen to racists of any form.”
Recent posts and comments shared on the group referred to the BLM protesters as “silly young girls with nothing better to do”, “lefty bitch” and “white racists”, and claimed it was “utter bollocks” to suggest there was racism in Sandbach.
There were also posts about patriotism, “All lives matter”, and mocking the idea of white privilege. One user posted details of where they claimed one organiser lived in the comment section and refused to remove it. The comment has since been deleted.
Several residents from Sandbach told the Guardian that more than 30 complaints had been made to the town council about Jack, some concerning his involvement in the Facebook group. On another Facebook page on 25 June, Jack posted a video of himself burning complaints about him, which he said were mostly from “members of the Labour party”.
James Barber, a local Labour councillor who attended one of Sandbach’s BLM protests, criticised Jack over his role as an administrator for the Facebook group. “I was disappointed to find … many abusive comments were posted in regard to the protest and those involved,” Barber said. “As a town councillor, David Jack is in a position of responsibility and trust.”
The group has been reported on numerous occasions to Facebook, but complainants say they were told no action was being taken because the group “doesn’t go against one of our [Facebook’s] specific community standards”, and were advised to hide, unfollow or leave the group.
One local resident, who wished to remain anonymous owing to fears for her safety, said she had experienced racism in the 28 years she had lived in Sandbach, and this had been amplified in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in the US in May.
“[The KKK comment] hit very hard,” she said. “It’s hard to think that I have acquaintances, people I went to school with, friends’ parents, liking comments like that.”
A spokesperson for Sandbach town council said: “Complaints regarding individual town councillors are handled by the principal authority, which for Sandbach is Cheshire East borough council. These complaints are investigated under the standards procedure and the monitoring officer receives and reviews the complaint, liaising with all involved parties directly.”
Jack did not respond to requests for comment.
