The hate that dare not speak its name

Rememebering Lorraine Cox

I did not know Lorraine Cox, but judging from this photo I have known many women like her. They are in my family, I have worked with them, I am mates with them, I see them in the street and hold a door open for them, sometimes saying hello.

I can not begin to understand the loss those who actually knew and loved her feel, especially her family, and I can only express my deepest sympathies for their loss. I am aware that by writing the following column I may cause some anguish for those people who loved Lorraine, it is not my intention.

The more I see of cases like this, the more convinced I become that white people are being treated as second class citizens in our country, and that maybe, this is contributing towards these incidents. If we do not value white lives, why should anyone else.

I have read various newspaper reports about this case, and I shall start with this one from DevonLive dated 02/03/21 with you.

It reads ‘A 32-year-old Exeter woman was murdered and her body mutilated after a chance meeting with a stranger in Exeter city centre, a trial has been told.

Lorraine Cox encountered Azam Mangori, 24, while walking home in the early hours at the end of the Bank Holiday weekend in August last year’.

Encountered - can we think about this for a moment please. Lorraine had been out drinking with friends, it was reported that she had, had a lot to drink, and she started to walk home, alone, at 1:30am.

It was also reported during the trial that small amounts of ketamine were found in her according to Dr Marc Augsburger, of Lausanne University Hospital, Switzerland. He is a specialist in forensic toxicology.

The BBC headline for this story is ‘Lorraine Cox 'may have died from drug and alcohol mix'

So - we have 2 stories so far, one saying there was a chance meeting and an encounter, and the other suggesting she died due to drink and drugs, despite Dr Augsburger saying the level of the drug found in Ms Cox's body had been very low and she had not overdosed.

However, he added the effect of mixing a very small amount of ketamine with alcohol was "a big issue for us and difficult to predict"

The Daily Mirror report from 02/03/21 states that Lorraine had the ‘Misfortune’ to bump into her killer'.

Misfortune

Chance meeting

Encountered

May have died from drink and drugs

The Great British press at work, does it feel like they are trying to portray this murder in a particular way - it does to me.

It feels very much like they are trying to downplay it - why would they do such a thing?

It was later reported that her killer,Azum Mangori had been following her before their ‘chance encounter’, and had watched amputation videos in the days before her disappearance.

So - the chance meeting does not appear to be actually by chance, maybe he had already hatched a plan to murder someone sometime previously. As far as I know he was never asked this in court.

And if he had thought about doing this, why did he?

On the night he saw Lorraine walking home, she was alone, drunk, and vulnerable, and if he had hatched a plan to kill and dismember someone, then maybe he took his opportunity.

But is there something we are missing,is there something about her skin colour and ethnicity that prompts this reaction in Azum?

Does he have think (at some level) that white women are somehow worth less, immoral?

Again, as far as I know, this was never raised in court.

All that has been reported about him is that he is a Iraqi Kurd and a failed asylum seeker. He did say his step father was working in a mosque and also in the Islamic Party. He was an extremist, praying for people and dealing with political parties and all that. So maybe he was a muslim - again it was not asked as far as I know. He also said he was bisexual.

He told the court he met Lorraine, they had sex in an alley way nead John Lewis’, which he recorded on his phone, they then went back to his flat where they had sex again, and she was smoking something on silver foil - toxicology reports showed no traces of heroin, or cocaine or other common drugs.

As you can see from this video clip, he spots Lorraine in the distance, it is late, she is alone, she is vulnerable, she may be drunk, it seems from the video that he is clearly stalking her. His hoody is up, he then turns around, removes his top and approaches her. As he walks towards her, Lorraine crosses the road (maybe she sense him), and he crosses just in front of her in time with her, and as they meet it appears as though he says something because she turns to speak to him, she walks on a little bit, he waits for a moment and then approaches her where they walk in the direction of his flat, but maybe not towards it.

As you can see from this second video, which continues where the one above finished, he has his arm around her shoulder (image above),he is much bigger than she is, and they appear to be walking faster.It seems as though he is forcing her’. At one point it seems quite clear that he is forcing her, he has hold of her left arm (image below), she does not appear to be willingly going with him.

She may have had sex with him in the alleyway because she felt pressured, or because she was afraid and wanted to get away from him, or maybe she was raped.

During the reporting of the Lorraine Cox murder trial, another case of a murdered women broke, Sarah Everard, was reported missing, than a serving Police Officer was arrested, and her body was found a day later.

Sarah Everard was 33 and a marketing executive, and her murder prompted an entirely different public reaction, including Kate Middleton, The Duchess of Cambridge and future Queen, attending a vigil on Clapham common which was deemed legal, even though it was during the covid lockdown, because it was work.

Later on during the vigil there were violent confrontations between police and those attending the vigil, leading to arrests, including this image which went viral and global. Hundreds of people attended the vigil - possibly thousands.

Vigils took place at other cities and towns as well, including Bristol, Nottingham, Manchester and Cambridge (which are the ones I found after a quick google search)

I do not want to play these cases of against one another, both these deaths are tragic and deeply unsettling, but I am concerned that cases like Lorraine Cox’s are reported in such a way as to to downplay it and hide the truth from the public, and I would like us all to think about this, and the possible reasons why this is happening.

Is it because she was murdered by a man from another country, another culture, a failed asylum seeker - is it because we are afraid of blaming the other, is it because we are afraid of being called racists if we do talk about these things?

And if any of this is true, if her white life did not matter to her attacker, and if her white life does not matter to us - will these cases continue and grow?

I do not have the answers, I just have questions and concerns, and I wish I could express them in such a way that people might feel inclined to think about why cases like Lorraine are happening, so that we can learn from them, and hopefully reduce the chances of them repeating, rather than just calling people racists for discussing these issues.

In the same way we try to learn from cases like Sarah.