Sheerness – A coach carrying a group of Hasidic Jewish boys ranging in age from 10 to 14 was attacked in the town of Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey on Tuesday by street thugs who pelted them with rocks and eggs, while shouting antisemitic slurs.
The boys, who were vacationing from London and headed to the beach following a visit to Diggerland in Strood, were ambushed not once, but twice by a marauding gang of teenagers which witnesses said contained both boys and girls.
One witness, who insisted on anonymity out of fear of reprisal, said the attackers were shouting,”Fuck you, go back to where you came from” as they broke at least one window on the coach with rocks.
“I couldn’t believe some of the things they were saying,” the witness said.
A spokesman for the coach company, London-based West’s Coaches Limited, said a replacement coach was sent to safely get the boys home, but issued a warning to Hasidics about bringing their families to the Isle of Sheppey in the future.
“The people on the coach were pretty shaken up,” said Nick Brown. “In the future we will have to warn ethnic minorities about bringing them to Sheppey.”
The chairman of the Sheppey Tourism Alliance, Heather Thomas-Pugh, said, “We are extremely disappointed that this sort of behavior has happened on our island.”
