On January 3 Emma West appeared at Croydon Magistrate’s Court charged with two racially aggravated public order offences. The case has been hailed as a triumph for social media, as the police had been aware of the incident, but failed to act until the video of the racist tirade became an internet sensation.
Close friend Kerry Finch told the Croydon Advertiser that Emma West had been reported to the British Transport Police at the time by a fellow passenger and removed from the tram by officers, who decided not to press charges.
This was a prosecution that only came about after the video ‘My Tram Experience’ went viral. The shaky footage, taken on a mobile camera phone, was uploaded to YouTube and has since been watched by more than 11 million people around the world.
A video still from the YouTube video which has been viewed over 11 million times worldwide
The video was shared on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and formed the subject of countless blog posts. It was responded to and even remixed online. Other similar videos started to emerge; ‘My Tram Experience Part Two’ and ‘My Bus Experience’ also drew huge audiences. The hashtag #mytramexperience trended as people used it to add their voices to the debate.
The sentiments expressed in reaction to the video were sometimes just as virulent as the opinions shrieked in the original. Piers Morgan used his Twitter account to call for her deportation and following the release of her address online, she received threats that prompted the police to imprison her over Christmas for her own safety.
Chief magistrate Gerald Ellis was forced to deny her bail application, saying “there are grounds for believing Miss West is not safe. We hear a number of death threats have been made”.
On November 28 the BTP announced via Twitter that they had arrested Emma West, a 34-year-old New Addington woman as a result of #mytramexperience being brought to their attention, and that she was due to appear in court later the next day.
Conservative MP for Croydon Central Gavin Barwell told MPs in the House of Commons that the language used in the rant was “foul”, but added “on a positive note, does this not show the power of social media both in allowing a suspect to be caught and in showing the vast majority of Croydon residents do not share the same views?”
This was a story that would never have been a story without social media, just another sad example of intolerance witnessed by only a handful of people on a tram. The video was uploaded onto one social media site and shared via many more. The outrage generated online forced the issue onto the news agenda, a compelling example of how ‘it can all start on social media’.
For more on the online reaction to the story, see some of the collected tweets and video responses on Storify:
http://storify.com/globaltvnews/british-woman-charged-after-racist-youtube-tram-vi/preview
Follow @Lauren__York on Twitter
