14 November 2023 , 15:24
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A family have been forced to flee their home after the dad was wrongly named as a racist who appeared in a viral video.
Jamie Turner, 34, from Northampton, was wrongly accused of being one of the men who shouted abuse at pro-Palestinian protestors at Waterloo Station in London. The video showed a number of men shouting abuse at protestors after seemingly spotting their signs. It went viral online and later led to three arrests in connection with “a racially aggravated altercation”.
A 57-year old from Surbiton, south west London; a 61-year old from West Molesey, Surrey; and a 33-year old from Christchurch, Dorset were taken into custody. However, online sleuths falsely identified Jamie as one of the men leading to him receiving a wave of abuse and threats.
Jamie and partner Hattie run a business together (Facebook)Speaking to The BBC he said his phone “lit up like a Christmas tree” with “incessant calls, voicemails and death threats”. Jamie runs JT Landscape Services with his wife Hattie and it seems his company was confused with another. He added: “Someone claimed to have found one of the guys in the video, then posted a link to my website on Twitter, which includes my telephone number and address.
"Afterwards I began to get a lot of verbal abuse on calls, then voicemails, and hundreds of messages every hour on WhatsApp. I've had people quoting my home address and threatening to chop me up or kill my family, which is really scary because we have two young children."
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As some threatened him, another person posted a fake one-star review on his company business. Hattie explained how their three-year-old child had been aware of the horror the family was undergoing, describing it as “vile”.
The BBC said that police visited Jamie on Sunday to provide safety advice and take details of the threats so they could further investigate them.
The Mirror contacted Northamptonshire Police for comment.