Man arrested after footage of racist Tube train rant is posted on YouTube

BBC News, the Independent and the Daily Mirror all report on the arrest of 52-year-old man from Watford who was filmed launching an expletive-ridden racist attack in which he refers to the Japanese as a “vicious bunch of f****** c****” and threatens to knockout a Somali man who filmed his tirade.

British Transport Police said the man was arrested on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence.

“An investigation was launched after we were made aware of a YouTube clip of a man using racist language on board a Bakerloo line train,” police said.

In the clip, filmed by a Somali passenger on the train carriage, the man, in a drunken state, can be seen abusing a Japanese woman shouting: “Get yourself off the train, get yourself off the train. You’re nasty people, yeah? F*** off, get out of my country. Sayonara.”

He continues his tirade despite attempts by the Tube passenger filming him to calm the man down. At one point he asks the person videoing him where he comes from.

The passenger replies: ‘Does it matter, really? Are you going to start sorting everyone on the train, man, one by one? What have you got against the Japanese?

“She didn’t kill your relatives, did she? Why is she going to apologise, what has she done to you?”

The man then starts saying: “I’m ex-Parachute Regiment. What do you know about history? Why do you f****** jabber when you know nothing? Shut up. You know two-thirds of f*** all.”

The man can be seen swigging from a bottle of wine which he offers it to the Somali passenger and when he refuses, the man says: “That’s because you’re from f****** Somalia”.

The BTP said yesterday afternoon that the man had been “bailed pending further police enquiries, until 30 Oct.”

British Transport Police have appealed for witnesses to the incident.