My son, my house and my car have been targeted. They don’t want us here because we’re black

John was on the motorway with his wife Sarah when his engine shut down. The car lost power. It was all he could do to steer the vehicle onto the hard shoulder into safety before the car came to a halt.

But more terrifying than his ordeal on the motorway was his discovery after it. Someone had intentionally topped up his petrol tank with water, putting his family in danger. “We didn’t feel like we are in a safe environment,” John said. “You just ask yourself: What if our son had been in the car? What if we hadn’t managed to pull to the side of the motorway?”

And this wasn’t the first time Sarah and John’s cars claim they have been the target of vandalism and criminal damage.

In the last year and a half he estimates they’ve had to fork out GBP5,000 in repairs for the vehicles. (The car which had water filled into the tank was deemed a ‘write off’ but the replacement was luckily covered by insurance.)

“They’ve been scratched up, the tires have been slashed twice – with a blade,” he said.