Discrimination is a major problem that exists as long as humanity lives on earth. Many people were victims of it, one of them was Dylan Lee. He was a usual 19 years old youngster from UK with his own dreams, goals and with a vision for his life. He had a loving older brother, did well at school, was thoughtful, sensitive and kind. His family was a target of harassment  because they belonged to the Roma community. He was living in a house with his parents, but, unfortunately they divorced and his mother decided to sell their house because they didn’t have enough money. So, they moved into a static caravan on a land she owned. Since that moment, they have been discriminated by their neighbours. 

As time went on, the pressure of his neighbors turned into violence.  Firstly, they started to damage their property. For instance, the neighbours threw shards of glass into their chicken coop. Then, the neighbors installed a security camera towards the land they owned to monitor them which violated their privacy. They also began to verbally insult by calling them ‘dirty gypsies’. However, the pressures were growing every day. The neighbours started a fire and blamed Jane for it. Due to these events, Jane and her children had become vulnerable to live in their own house. All these events led Dylan and his family into loneliness, and they became more isolated.

These continuous treatments led them to live in never-ending anxiety. They had a sense of non-belongingness and fear, feeling lonely and isolated from the community where they were living. The situation was upsetting them day by day, and the repetitive abuse was creating an even bigger trauma, by harming and upsetting the family. Feeling the real threat, Jane called the police more than 20 times in a two year period. Although the police haven’t done a lot to stop the campaign of the hate touching their family. She kept reporting all the incidents happening to them to the police, spending so much time and energy, while the police was refusing to act. All the neighbors were continuing to act indifferently while creating more problems for the family and harming them and their property. The family has been treated like the criminal, while they were living on their own land without disturbing anyone. So the family was unable to stop the line of harassment and didn’t have any awareness where to address in order to get the proper help and support. 

Due to all these, Dylan became isolated, depressed, in a hopeless situation. He believed that if you are good to people, they will respond in the same way, but saw the opposite. Also, as the hope for the police’s support was lost, it added up to the tiny hopes that their situation may change. Due to having depression, anxiety, he found no other way but to commit suicide.

After the suicide there was a Coroner, who chose to take a narrow approach. He decided it was not within the scope of the inquest to consider the impact on Dylan of the alleged harassment, or the police’s lackluster response to it. So, only partial evidence was considered on the day. The Coroner interpreted his role incorrectly. In cases of suicide, coroners can – and in many cases should – consider why an individual took their own life. And when alleged discrimination is involved, or where authorities may have failed in their duty of care, it’s even more important that inquests grapple with these issues.

It is obvious that there was systemic injustice in the investigation process, not considering all the possibilities of the cause and neglecting all the notices that the mother tried to deliver through calling police so many times. If authorities fail to care about its citizens, show active concern to their needs and problems, leaving its citizens desperate, its a clear sign of a failed government system. Fortunately there are independent journalists funded by the community donations who want to raise voice about cases such as Dylan’s to raise awareness and push for changes in the current state of biased governmental decision making. We also want to let people know about how underprivileged societies can suffer because of misgovernment, narcissistic and offensive behavior of majority communities which lead to such tragedies.

Once more, we come in apprehension that perhaps our community isn’t as safe as we have anticipated before.The consequences concerning the action that was taken will hopefully encourage scholars and authorities to take a deeper look at the nexus of the discrimination of Roma people, which is an important, complex, multidimensional, and understudied topic. Once again we call up for action against these events. Measures must be taken and a drastic change in our anti discrimination policy should be considered. Awareness must be spread across our society to help the vulnerable part of our community and prevent other cases from happening.

The Reputation Project is implemented by Active Development Association and is funded by the Erasmus+ programme of European Union.