Petr Torák

"I remember that day exactly. It was while I was at work, in a meeting. My superior and I were discussing modern slavery, we had been to a town before. During that meeting, my phone kept vibrating, and during the break I looked up what it had been. My wife called me, she said, 'Hey, I don't know exactly what this means, but you might need a new suit.' I didn't understand. She says, 'You've got some letter saying you've been nominated for an award,' and that she looked up what it meant and it was from the Queen. It was the first time I'd heard of it, I didn't know what it meant, I thought it was some kind of a joke. Then I asked my superior Susie what it meant - the MBE, if she'd ever heard of it, and she was absolutely delighted. It wasn't until I got home that I looked up what an MBE even meant on the internet. The letter said that I had been nominated for this award, that it had already been approved by the Prime Minister, and that it was now waiting for the Queen herself to approve and sign it off. And after that I would be contacted. I couldn't believe it, I thought it was a joke. Then I waited an awfully long time, nobody got in touch at all, no further letter for another few months. I thought someone was playing a joke on me. But after about six months I got another letter saying it was completely approved and I was given a date to receive the award."

"We were in that detention centre for about four or five days and then they moved us to a town called Southend-on-Sea. It's a seaside town about two hours south and east of London, just near Dover. That's where they took us. I still remember the very first feeling we had as we were arriving into Southend-on-Sea, to the sea. We were looking, I felt like I was in a dream. I didn't understand that we were going to the sea. You had mixed feelings at times as to whether we were staying there or whether we were going to be put on a boat and deported back. But the moment we were passing by the sea, there was a huge hotel on the right side called the Palace Hotel. The driver who was taking us there was saying, 'Your home, your house!' We stared in disbelief at what he meant. Is this where we're going to live?“

"This happened just before graduation or after graduation, it was in April or May of the ninety-ninth year. I went to the shopping centre to look in a clothes store. It's right in the centre. I remember it to this day, it's etched in my memory because it was a huge shock to me. Even though one was already used to it to a certain extent, being chased by football hooligans or people from the neighbourhood, it was never that personal. I went into that centre, up the stairs, I went into the shop. Then I was going down the stairs and there, between two staircases, a group of five or six skinheads were coming towards me, and in the middle of the two staircases they stopped me and encircled me. They were standing around me, calling me a Gypsy, threatening me. They had their hands in their pockets and you didn't know whether they had knives or not on them. I know that they kicked me, punched me, and then one asked if I had any money on me. And that was the window of opportunity. At the time, it seemed like ages to me, about five or ten minutes I was standing there like that. A lot of people were walking up and down around us, nobody stood up for me, didn't shout at them in any way. The moment one of them asked if I had my wallet, it gave me a chance to break free from their grasp to see where my wallet was and I quickly slipped out to go home. They followed me for some time. I remember running up to Fügnerova Street and then to Romanian Street. They chased me for a few more tens of meters and then I managed to escape."

"From the beginning, when I joined the police, I was proud to be of Romani origin and a police officer. It wasn't always met with positive feedback. From both sides, from the police and from the community. I remember when I started working for the police I was to some extent a threat to gangs, of course mainly gangs of Romani origin and criminals who suddenly saw me as a threat. Because of course I understood them, I knew them or I knew their nicknames, I knew where they lived. Suddenly the police had a chance to see into it. I received several death threats from these persons. At the same time, there were cases at the police. Right at the beginning of my career as a PCSO, I was the only European in the office, and I had a colleague of Pakistani origin, Yasmin. One colleague, an English woman, kept making fun of us because of our accents and saying that because of people like us, her father was not entitled to proper health care. She had a lot of really stupid comments, but we were new in the police, we didn't want to put our heads above the parapet, we didn't want to speak up, so we let it be. But another colleague, a Brit, heard it and reported it. The policewoman lost her job, she was out of work within two months."