Police in Bedfordshire, England, had admitted that a paedophile described as a “Luton man” was a migrant after Breitbart London reported their refusal to disclose his nationality.
Bedfordshire Police did not disclose the nationality of 29-year-old Zakei Ciurar, convicted of “three counts of sexual activity with a child, two of which involved penetration” after grooming a 13-year-old girl and offering her parents money to try and hush up his crimes, in a news bulletin on his sentencing, and local media referred to him only as a “Luton man”.
Similar language has been used by the mainstream media to avoid mentioning the background of foreign criminals in the past.
The BBC, for example, referred to failed Albanian asylum seeker Eltiona Skana, who slit a child’s throat in front of her horrified parents in a public park on Mother’s Day, as merely a “Bolton woman” in several reports, justifying it to this reporter by claiming that they “refer to ethnicity, race or sexuality only where we believe there is a direct relevance to the case in hand” — but admitting she was an immigrant in subsequent reporting.
It was in this context that Breitbart London asked Bedfordshire Police to confirm Zakei Ciurar’s nationality, receiving the astonishing response that “[i]mmigration isn’t something the police really deal with” and that they could not pass the information on in any case, supposedly due to data protection laws.
Breitbart London disputed this, given the police news bulletin on Ciurar’s sentencing included his photograph, age, and address at Hitchin Road, but the police were adamant that they had already “given the relevant info” and that we would have to “speak to immigration”, possibly in reference to the Immigration Enforcement agency at the Home Office.
However, after Breitbart London reported this refusal on May 7th — and despite the fact the police force’s anonymous correspondent had insisted they would “leave this matter there” — a proper reply from a named senior communications advisor staffer was sent on Monday afternoon, confirming that Ciurar was indeed a Romanian migrant.
Breitbart London asked the force to elaborate on previous claim that “[i]mmigration isn’t something the police really deal with”, but have not received a response as of the time of publication.
Luton Crown Court and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), who were also asked to confirm Ciurar’s immigration status, have still not responded to Breitbart London’s queries at all.
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