Police probe ‘racist’ Facebook posts by landlord displaying golly***s in pub
Essex Police officers seized the offensive dolls at the White Hart Inn in Grays
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Police investigating alleged hate crimes over the display of golli***s in a pub are now examining historic social media posts apparently by the landlord.
Christopher Ryley, the landlord of the White Hart Inn in Grays, Essex, allegedly shared a number posts on his Facebook profile expressing racist and far-right views, including a comment where he apparently joked about Mississippi lynchings.
The pub was raided this month with Essex Police removing around 20 of the racist dolls from the pub prompting an intervention from the home secretary who scolded the force for sending five officers to the operation.
In a March 2016 Facebook post still online, Mr Ryley uploaded a picture of golli***s hanging from his bar with the comment “We have our golli***s, yaay.” Commenting on the post his wife, Benice Ryley, asked: “Are you sure this is legal. lol.”
The landlord replied: “They used to hang them in Mississippi years ago.”
Months before, Mr Ryley had allegedly shared several propaganda images created by the white nationalist Generation Identity group, which inspired the 2019 New Zealand mosque shooter.
“It’s time to rise up,” a Generation Identity poster reading: “Keep calm and defend your country” was captioned.
Mr Ryley later appears to have shared a recruitment poster and a photo of group members holding a banner over a bridge carrying the slogan: “Defend London. Stop Islamisation.”
In 2018 Mr Ryley was asked by his local council to explain the golliwogs in the pub’s bar. Posting about that on Facebook, he said: “Today I’ve had a call from our council licencing dept because some ‘Snowflake’ has decided that they think they are racial.
“They have even gone to the police to complain that it could constitute ‘racial aggrevation’ I never invited this person in, if they are not happy, go elsewhere. Our customers bring these items in from their travels.
“We have a lot of ‘coloured customers’ who have never complained.”
In July last year, a complaint appeared on his Facebook page about the prospect of a Muslim prime minister, in an apparent mistaken reference to Rishi Sunak, who is a Hindu.
It said: “We now have the prospect of a Muslim PM, along with … other Muslim mayor’s throughout the UK. Don’t get me wrong, I choose to live in a Muslim country, here in Turkey. Did all the UK population agree to live under a Muslim regime? Muanmar Kadaffi said in 2008, we don’t need guns or bombs. We will simply out breed Europeans.”
In May 2021 Mr Ryley allegedly complained about media coverage of the US police murder of George Floyd, writing: “Why are MSM dragging up George Floyd a year after he died? What about our own ppl who have died, Lee Rigby, why does he not get mentioned. Sorry, I forgot, he was white. That don’t count.”
Other posts include footage of far-right political commentator Katie Hopkins discussing Channel crossings and videos claiming that “indigenous white Brits” are becoming a minority in the UK and white people need a “safe haven”.
Mr Ryley appeared to call for a “white history month” and posted the slogan “white lives matter” during the global reaction to the 2020 killing of George Floyd by American police.
In a Facebook post from July last year, a post on his page took aim at “transgenders, gays, people that don’t know what they are” and “illegal immigrants”.
Today the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) said the pub would no longer be an entry in their Good Beer Guide and that it was " baffling that any pub would choose to discriminate against customers".
CAMRA tweeted: “Following discussions with the branch and our volunteer leadership yesterday evening, the White Hart's entry in the Good Beer Guide has been deleted & will not be submitted for forthcoming guides while the pub continues to be operated in a way counter to CAMRA's values and policies.”
It added: “CAMRA believes pubs should be welcoming and inclusive places and it's baffling that any pub would choose to discriminate against customers or potential customers by continuing to display offensive material.”
Asked about the Facebook posts and references to lynchings and Generation Identity, Ms Ryley told The Independent: “I don’t know anything about that, you’d have to ask my husband but I can assure you that my husband and I are not racist at all. At all.
“We run under India Inns, Grays Limited, we had an Indian partner before he was killed in a car accident. We do Indian weddings, we have many cultures come into our pub and none of them would ever say we’re rude to them or anything like that, we welcome them all.
“To me we are all people and my husband feels the same. As for the gollies they are dolls, they’re nothing but dolls, childhood dolls. I’d love my dolls back though.”
Policing minister Chris Philip distanced himself from Ms Braverman’s position on the raid saying it was “up to police to decide how they respond to incidents”.
Asked on LBC why it took five police staff to remove the collection, Mr Philp said: “I’m not going to answer yes or no because they’re operationally independent and it’s up to police to decide how they respond to incidents, not up to me to tell them what to do or to offer comments after the event.”
Essex Police confirmed it was looking into Mr Ryley’s social media posts.