The landlord of a pub, which was defended by the home secretary after police seized its collection of golli*** dolls, referred to US lynchings and posted far-right content on Facebook.
Chris Ryley and his wife previously refused council requests to remove the items from display at The White Hart in Grays.
Essex Police are now investigating an alleged hate crime, prompting an intervention by Suella Braverman claiming they should “not be getting involved in this kind of nonsense”.
After a “distressed” member of the public contacted police in February, Mr Ryley defended the dolls, writing on his public Facebook page: “Some sad face has decided that The White Hart has once again been declared ‘A Rascist [sic] pub’ due to the fact we still have our Goully [sic] Dolls on the shelf …some people really do need to get a life.”
The landlord has used the same Facebook page to post several photos of the dolls, including some hanging from a wooden beam.
“We have our golli***s, yaaay,” he wrote in a caption in March 2016. When his wife commented asking if the post was “legal lol [laugh out loud]”, Mr Ryley replied: “They used to hang them in Mississippi years ago.”
The US state of Mississippi saw some of the highest numbers of lynchings, including hangings, targeting Black people through the 1800s and 1900s, according to the NAACP civil rights organisation.
After refusing the local council’s request to take down the dolls in 2018, Mr Ryley posted another photograph of them on Facebook and said they had been reported to the police.
“Our customers bring these items in from their travels,” he wrote. “We have a lot of ‘coloured customers’ who have never complained.”
Months before, Mr Ryley had shared several propaganda images created by the white nationalist Generation Identity group, which inspired the 2019 New Zealand mosque shooter.
“It’s time to rise up,” he captioned a Generation Identity poster reading: “Keep calm and defend your country.”
Mr Ryley later shared a recruitment poster and a photo of group members holding a banner over a bridge carrying the slogan: “Defend London. Stop Islamisation.”
Other posts include footage of far-right political commentator Katie Hopkins discussing Channel crossings and videos claiming that “indigenous white Brits” are becoming a minority in the UK and white people need a “safe haven”.
Mr Ryley appeared to call for a “white history month” and posted the slogan “white lives matter” during the global reaction to the 2020 killing of George Floyd by American police.
In a Facebook post from July last year, he took aim at “transgenders, gays, people that don’t know what they are” and “illegal immigrants”.
Mr Ryley, who currently lives in Turkey, appeared to wrongly suggest that Rishi Sunak was a Muslim, questioning: “Did all the UK population agree to live under a Muslim regime?”
He has not responded to The Independent’s request for comment but his wife, Benice Ryley, said they were not racist and the golli***s were “just dolls”.
Asked about Mr Ryley’s Facebook posts and references to lynchings and Generation Identity, she said: “I don’t know anything about that, you’d have to ask my husband but I can assure you that my husband and I are not racist at all. At all.
“We run under India Inns, Grays Limited, we had an Indian partner before he was killed in a car accident. We do Indian weddings, we have many cultures come into our pub and none of them would ever say we’re rude to them or anything like that, we welcome them all.
“To me we are all people and my husband feels the same. As for the gollies they are dolls, they’re nothing but dolls, childhood dolls. I’d love my dolls back though.”
Golli***s are based on a Black fictional character that appeared in children’s books in the late 19th century.
They became popular in Britain in the 1970s but are now widely regarded as a racist caricature of Black people.
Ms Ryley said she was grateful for the home secretary’s intervention, adding: “She’s right, she’s totally right. These are from our past and it’s only the young lads complaining … it’s absolutely silly.”
The landlady has put golli*** dolls in her remaining collection back on display but added a sign on the pub door saying: “We have golly dolls displayed inside on our shelves. If you feel offended. Please do not enter.”
Essex Police said it had received an allegation of a hate crime on 24 February, when a member of the public reported being distressed after visiting The White Hart.
The force is investigating under the Public Order Act, which covers threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, and part of the Crime and Disorder Act that includes racially-aggravated public order offences.
“We have regularly discussed the progression of this case with the Crown Prosecution Service and on 4 April, five officers visited a location off Argent Street, Grays, and seized several items in connection with that investigation,” a statement added.
“No one has been arrested or charged in connection with the investigation and our enquiries are ongoing. The force is proud of the work we do to prevent crime, tackle offenders and build trust and confidence in all our communities.”
The force said it had not been contacted directly by the home secretary in relation to the investigation, adding: “We maintain operational independence from the Home Office which ensures that every investigation is carried out without fear or favour.”
The Independent understands that staff in the home secretary’s private office had contacted police on her behalf over the case, because Ms Braverman believes that “police shouldn’t be seizing dolls” or “policing taste”.
When asked about Mr Ryley’s social media posts, a spokesperson for Ms Braverman said her intervention was unrelated to his previous comments and only concerned the seizure of the dolls.
