Man who refused job 'fed racist prejudices'
THE TIMES.
26th MARCH , 1985.
A Rastafarian who last week rejected a judge's offer of a job was given a nine-month jail sentence suspended for two years when he returned to the Central Criminal Court yesterday and announced that he had found work.
Judge Argyle, MC, QC, did not carry out his threat to jail Everton Samuels because Samuels had found employ- ment as a driver, earning £113 a week. But the judge gave him a stiff reprimand and disclosed that the court had received many letters from unemployed people desperate for work and from fascists and racists condemning the defendant's attitude.
Samuels, aged 27, a qualified technician, of Chalk Hill Estate, Wembley, north-west London, who admitted possessing a small amount of cannabis, had rejected the offer of a job from the judge “ because it was too far to travel.”
Yesterday Judge Argyle told him: "You are living in a different world to the rest of us. There are a lot of people that work in this court and have served their country well and travel a great deal more than eight miles to do their jobs."
Judge Argyle added: "As a result of the publicity which this case was given the court has received many letters from persons like you( with ) previous convictions who are unable to get work and from others who have never crossed the law and are desperate for a job."
The judge said Samuels's manner had done his people "little good" but had "fed the prejudices of racists who think that just because a person happens to be coloured he is automatically unfit to be part of their society." Mr James Richardson, for the defence, told the court that Samuels had found work as a van driver, starting tomorrow.
Last week the judge spent his lunch hour trying to find a job for Samuels with an electrical firm.
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