Ben OsborneYorkshire Police are investigating racist emails that Dr. John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, has received in possible response to an interview he took part in with The Daily Telegraph where he covered a number of issues including his opposition to gay marriage and racist abuse he received when he first arrived in the UK from Uganda.
A North Yorkshire police spokesman said, “We can confirm that a complaint has been received from the office of Archbishop John Sentamu, following the receipt of emails containing racially offensive statements. The emails are being investigated as a hate crime.”
It is unclear at present if the emails are linked to the protests outside of the Minster last week after comments made by Dr. John Sentamu, regarding gay marriage. Reports in the main-stream media seem to suggest that the emails are linked to his comments on same sex marriage, whereas The Guardian suggests that the they are more likely to be linked to his comments on racism.
A spokeswoman for the Archbishop confirmed that, “A large quantity of correspondence was received in response to the archbishop’s interview with the Daily Telegraph, which touched on a wide range of issues. Among many positive emails that he has received, there have been a small number of abusive and threatening emails of a racist nature which North Yorkshire police are investigating as hate crimes.”
Dr. John Sentamu, who trained as a lawyer in Uganda before moving to the UK after being beaten by members of Idi Amin’s regime, spoke of the racist abuse that he received when he arrived in the UK, “When I was a vicar there was a lady who didn’t want me to take her husband’s funeral because I was black. I took one funeral and at the end a man said to me, ‘Why did my father deserve to be buried by a black monkey?’ We received letters with excrement in.”
