A FORMER BNP organiser turned anti-racism campaigner has been in Coventry promoting the fight against hate crime.
Andy Sykes spent a week in the city leading anti-racism training for police, youth workers, Youth Offending Services staff, Victim Support officers and firefighters.
The aim of the training was to promote awareness of racism and give people confidence to challenge it when they see it.
It is also hoped they will feed their training back to other people in their organisations and the communities in which they work.
As part of the training, participants had DNA samples analysed to reveal their ethnic background.
Alison Quigley, Coventry City Council's hate crime reduction officer, who organised the training, found she is genetically linked to people in Russia, Iran and Romania.
She said: "One of the key points of the training is to make clear that there is no such thing as people being biologically British.
"The anti-racism training drives home the importance of not just challenging racist behaviour but also having the background knowledge to pinpoint the factual inaccuracies that lie behind many racist beliefs."
Andy Sykes joined the BNP in 2001, thinking it was a progressive party concerned for the future of the nation.
He quickly became disillusioned and worked as a mole, passing information to the Trades Union Congress.
In 2004, he worked with an undercover BBC reporter on a documentary that provoked national debate about the far-right party.
ICCOVENTRY.CO.UK
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