Son of Dublin stab victim flees after new race attack

A black English telecom worker has been driven from his home in Ireland by racistsonly weeks after his father was repeatedly stabbed in a race attack while visiting him in Dublin.

A black English telecom worker has been driven from his home in Ireland by racistsonly weeks after his father was repeatedly stabbed in a race attack while visiting him in Dublin.

Christian Richardson, 24, who moved to Dublin to live with his Irish girlfriend, decided to flee the country after being pursued by gang of racists as he cycled to work.

He said the attack on Tuesday morning had left him too scared to continue living in the Irish capital. "It was broad daylight, just before 11 in the morning. Three lads shouted a load of racist abuse at me as I passed them and then started coming after me," he said.

"I was terrified. I thought, 'That's it, I'm off. No way I'm staying around to take this.' I just packed and got on a plane." Mr Richardson resigned from his job at ICT Eurotel and returned to his native Bristol.

In June his white father, David Richardson, 45, was knifed in the neck and back as he protected his Jamaican-born wife Laverne from a racist attack as the family walked to Christian's south Dublin flat.

After the stabbing, David Richardson, an engineer, was left fighting for his life. He has now returned to England but has been told by doctors he may never be able to work again.

Christian Richardson said that he was sad to leave Ireland. "I've got some really great friends [in Dublin] and I'm going to miss them."

ICT Eurotel operations manager Jason Neiland said: "We are saddened and dismayed that someone of Christian's ability feels he has no choice but to leave Ireland and return home because of the racial abuse he and his family received here."

The Irish Republic has seen an upsurge in racial tension in the last few months following a dramatic rise in the numbers of immigrants and refugees arriving in the country.

The Irish Home Affairs Department now deals with 1,000 applications a month from asylum-seekers, compared to just 39 in the whole of 1992. But with the arrival of the new immigrants has come a racial backlash which Irish MP Frances Fitzgerald has described as "a crisis on our streets".

In April around 70 African asylum-seekers and refugees took to the streets of Dublin in a protest march after an attack that left a Nigerian teenager with severe head injuries.