
Noel Phillips, host of Good Morning Britain, was recently the target of racial insults and spitting by an unknown man. Phillips has claimed he is unsure if he would ever meet with his assailant.
After his assailant, who has asked to meet with Phillips, was spared jail time and given a rehabilitation order, the North America Correspondent has urged for “more strong sanctions.”
Last year, when Phillips was out and about in London, a 17-year-old approached him and began using a racial slur.
Phillips said the awful event had turned his life ‘upside down,’ and the adolescent had taken the journalist’s jewellery and spit in his face before running down the road.
Phillips explained, “I was extremely startled,” when asked about the crime. I had no idea what was going on. He reached out and tried to sling my backpack and belongings over my head. The seams on my T-shirt had come undone.
However, “he managed to take off with a necklace and then that’s when I realised having frozen for a couple of seconds, and then took chase,” he said to The Mirror.
Phillips said he followed the thief, who was eventually caught by police and sentenced to community service and a curfew on January 11.
The journalist added that the crook had requested a meeting with him, but that he had not to decide whether or not to agree to the meeting.
He explained: ‘I’m now grappling with the decision as to whether it’s the right thing to do and I know a lot of people will reflect and say, ‘why would you want to meet someone like that?’
‘But I think for me, I’m just really keen to understand why he did what he did.
‘I’m not attempting to rehabilitate him, I’m not attempting to essentially try and be a mentor or anything like that. I just want him to understand.’
Phillips continued: ‘Perhaps the court didn’t get the point across very well and just passing the under penalties. I just want him to understand the impact of what he did.
‘Maybe it won’t change or maybe we’ll go out there and do it again but I think if I can have just a couple of minutes and get into trying to get the facts into his head of just how disgusting this word is and I think that will be my objective.
‘I wouldn’t hope to take anything much else away from it.’
The broadcaster also blasted the light sentencing, saying the attacker should be ‘held to account and be sent to prison and understand the severity of his crimes.’
‘You can’t go around spitting in people’s faces and calling them racial slurs on the basis that you couldn’t get away with their property that you tried to steal,’ he added.