When Jamaine Facey and Patrick Hutchinson and three friends attended a Black Lives Matter protest in London in June, they hadn't intended to get involved in any skirmishes. But that's what happened when they worked together to save a far right protestor from further injury.
Their heroic actions culminating in an iconic viral photograph of the man they helped being carried to safety over Patrick's shoulder.
Since then there have been newspaper front pages, TV interviews, a chat to civil rights activist the Rev Al Sharpton, an interview with Prince Harry on Zoom, and perhaps most importantly a charity called 'United to Change and Inspire' set up to fight racial inequality in Britain.
Jamaine and Patrick joined Kathryn Ryan from London where they’re preparing for an unusual Christmas.
Patrick says they decided to go to the protest in June because Jamaine had been to a previous one where a police woman was thrown from her horse and badly injured. He noticed that there were no older, wiser heads there to simmer down situations.
“There was no one and amongst us we know a lot of security guards, martial artists, personal trainers, and fathers. There was no one there of that description to support the youngsters.
“So, when Jamaine got home that day, he put a bit of a rant out on Facebook Live and was asking where everybody was. That’s the reason why we ended up going down there.”
The group found out that Tommy Robinson, the far-right English Defence League co-founder, was organising a counter-protest to “protect statues” in London.
“Once he did that we knew that some of the younger protesters would go there to meet them head-on and we knew we had to be there to try to keep the peace.”
Jamaine says he felt that the marches were a positive movement for younger people but knew there was potential for trouble.
“I knew if I was 20 years old I would’ve messed with Tommy Robinson. I would’ve been out there and I probably would’ve been one of the kids having a fight, jumping in and not listening. I just knew that we needed to be there to steer them in the right direction.”
During the protest, they noticed an altercation taking place between Black Lives Matters protesters and the EDL. After the EDL counter-protesters ran off, Bryn Male was left by himself.
“He seemed a bit worse for wear,” Patrick says, “he was totally intoxicated and looked a bit concussed, he didn’t know where he was.”
Male began walking into the crowd while a Black Lives Matter protester attempted to prevent him from further attacks.
“We realised it was only a matter of time before people realised what happened and would descend on him so we quickly made our way over there. By the time we got to the staircase, we couldn’t even see where he was, he was underneath all of the protesters. We literally ran over there, pulled the protesters out of the way so we could find where he was.
“Eventually, we found him lying in a foetal position on one of the stairs and the guys made a protective barrier around him so no one else could harm him, but the numbers were multiplying and we needed to think on our feet quickly so I thought to myself, I’m going to pick him up, throw him over my shoulder and carry him over to the police who were standing not too far away filming everything.”
Jamaine says the police didn’t act to help the man during the process and instead just filmed the incident.
“They stayed back basically,” Patrick says, “they were collecting data. What they like to do here is not get too involved in any of the altercations, they collect the data then maybe a few days later, a week later, or even a month later, you get a knock on the door and they arrest you.
“There’s no on-hand policing at the time in terms of trying to stop these various things happening.”
Patrick says when they handed Male over to the police, one of them told him well-done. After that, the group went on trying to simmer down skirmishes.
“There were three or four other incidents that we helped defuse on that day, that’s just the one that was caught on camera.”
Jamaine recalls another incident where a young kid was about to start doing graffiti on a wall when police swooped onto him. He managed to convince the police to let the boy off and gave him a talking to.
“He was looking at as if ‘yeah, and?’ but then he kind of clicked on and we sent him on his way. If we weren’t there, he probably would’ve carried on in that mindset where he didn’t care, dealt with the police wrong and would’ve got a criminal record just for being silly on the day because he was in a group bubble of craziness at the time.”
He says saving Male wasn’t just about him, it was about preventing the kids attacking him from doing something that could affect them the rest of their lives.
“We were saving the kids that day because if he died, it would’ve been Black Lives Matter protesters kill grandad of three, father of two, ex-police officer. The whole narrative would’ve been completely different.”
