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THE ROSS PARKER CASE
Eleanor Neale's 14-minute overview: the quickest complete way into the case.
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Ross Andrew Parker (17 August 1984 – 21 September 2001) was a seventeen-year-old from the Westwood area of Peterborough, England. He had recently completed a GNVQ in business studies at Jack Hunt School and hoped to join the police force. He worked part-time at a local public house, The Solstice, where he met his girlfriend, Nicola Toms.
Shortly after 1:15 a.m. on Friday 21 September 2001, Parker was walking with Toms along a cycle path alongside Bourges Boulevard in Millfield, Peterborough, when they were confronted by a gang of around ten British Pakistani youths, some wearing balaclavas. The attack occurred ten days after the 11 September 2001 attacks in New York, amid heightened racial tensions in the area. A 2002 trial judge concluded the group had planned to find "a white male to attack simply because he was white." Parker was sprayed with CS gas, punched, then stabbed three times from behind through the throat and chest with a foot-long hunting knife, and was struck with a hammer and repeatedly kicked as he lay on the ground. Toms sought help at a nearby petrol station and flagged down a passing police car, but by the time she returned, Parker had bled to death and the attackers had fled.
Following the attack, twelve suspects of Pakistani descent were arrested over the following weekend. On 26–27 September 2001, Sarfraz Ali, Ahmed Ali Awan, Shaied Nazir and Zairaff Mahrad were charged with murder. By March 2002 all four had been released on bail, prompting concern from Parker's family, who wrote to the Home Secretary.
The trial began on 7 November 2002 at Northampton Crown Court. Evidence presented included covert police recordings of the defendants discussing the attack, murder weapons recovered from a shed at Nazir's house, and DNA and fingerprint evidence linking Nazir to the knife and Parker's blood to items belonging to the defendants. Witnesses described the defendants variously admitting to beating, kicking, or stabbing Parker. On 19 December 2002, Nazir, Awan and Ali were unanimously found guilty of murder. The judge, Sir Edwin Jowitt, stated the men had armed themselves with the purpose of attacking "an innocent man you might find by chance simply because he was of a different race." Awan, found to have wielded the knife and to have been the ringleader, received a minimum term of 18 years; Nazir and Ali received minimum terms of 16 years. Mahrad was cleared of both murder and manslaughter.
Awan and Nazir appealed their sentences in January 2008, and Ali appealed in July 2009; all three had their original sentences upheld. The presiding appeal judge noted that had the crime occurred after 2005, significantly higher minimum terms would likely have applied under reforms to sentencing for racially aggravated murder.
The case generated public debate about media coverage of crimes involving white victims, including scrutiny from the BBC Editorial Standards Committee and comment from journalists and police representatives. A memorial plaque for Parker was installed in the Netherton area of Peterborough, where an annual football match is held in his memory.
