This Greater Manchester group patrols schools looking for ‘outsiders’ – and it’s dividing the community

Heywood is deeply divided. The small town sits eight miles north of Manchester in the metropolitan borough of Rochdale, where the scandal of sexual abuse still provokes anger and distrust of authorities. It’s just six miles away from the Crumpsall synagogue that was recently the target of a horrific terror attack.  

For Jamie Thomason, it’s time for communities to police their own streets. Thomason set up the Heywood Community Guards in September. That involves a group of men volunteering to go “on patrol” and standing outside schools in white hi-vis. 

The group has been formed through Facebook and WhatsApp groups. The volunteers have no
formal security training. They’ve been standing outside schools when kids arrive in the morning and when they leave in the afternoon. They’ve been patrolling schools at night to keep an eye out for “outsiders” scoping out buildings. 

Big Issue is in Heywood to find out why. We meet Thomason in The Dressers Arms pub off Heywood’s main Dawson Street. He’s dressed in the hi-vis that has become the symbol of the group – and either a sign of safety or distrust, depending on your stance. 

“If our community stands up and looks after each other, there’s strength in numbers and we can
actually police our own community. Now, this is from outsiders,” says Thomason, who moved to Heywood six years ago. 

“If everybody lives in the community, we all know each other, everything’s fine. It’s when all these outsiders are coming in and causing problems. So we thought we’ll do some patrols, just community members, just family members, just walking around our own community, just keeping an eye on things.” 

The anger that erupted over the summer outside asylum hotels has now been turned towards houses in multiple occupancy, or HMOs as they are known. 

The Home Office’s use of HMOs as dispersal accommodation for asylum seekers has become a hot button topic among councils across the country. 

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For example, the Reform-led Durham County Council has invoked new rules to require all new HMOs to have planning permission in a bid to prevent more homes being converted into contained flats. 

Thomason organised a protest against HMOs in Heywood in August. He described the protest as “absolutely amazing”, telling Big Issue he was “proud” of himself for organising the demonstration and the “community spirit” on show. 

“The whole idea of the protest was to meet the council and say: don’t put these illegal, unvetted, dangerous men in our society. Don’t bring them here. Put them somewhere else. HMOs are needed for people in need – not illegal, unvetted, dangerous fighting-age men that no one knows nothing about,” he tells Big Issue. 

“HMOs are very much needed. We need HMOs for British-born people and British occupants of all races, not just white. I mean, that’s very important, I’m not racist. My son’s mixed race. I’ve got kids of different nationalities. These HMOs are needed for British citizens. They are filling these HMOs with illegal, unvetted men and they are dangerous.” 

After the protest, Thomason wanted to step things up and he came up with the idea of “communities policing the streets”. He bought some white hi-vis with the “last money he had”, launched an open WhatsApp group, a Facebook page and started patrols on 26 September. 

“Every school in this country should have security. That is my main goal, my main objective in this plan, I will stand down and stop doing what I’m doing when there’s security on every school in England,” says Thomason. “In Britain, we have security guards in JobCentres. We have security guards in pubs, even the one we’re in now has security guards at night. We have security guards in shops. We have security guards everywhere.

“Why, I’m asking a question to everyone, do we not have security in the most important places, where the most vulnerable people are, the children?” 

It’s important to note, at the time of writing, Big Issue has seen no evidence that there has been an attack on a school in Heywood, linked to people housed in HMOs or otherwise. 

So how would these men keep kids safe? 

Thomason insists that they would, ideally, act in a group of four, film incidents as they happen and call the police. At this point, Thomason, who says he has qualifications related to security, says: “I would have no choice but to get physical and act and do what everyone else can do, which is a fully legal citizen’s arrest.” But Thomason, an amateur bareknuckle boxer, also tells Big Issue during our hour-long interview: “People say that I’m a violent man. Yes, I am very violent, but I am a controlled, violent man.” 

The impact of the Heywood Community Guards

A simple scroll down the Facebook page will tell you just how divisive these patrols have been. There are plenty of comments praising Thomason. He talks of mums coming up to him, crying on his shoulder and telling him: “They wouldn’t be sending their kids to school if it wasn’t for him”. 

But there are plenty of other comments too, raising concerns about unvetted men loitering outside schools as part of the patrols. Some ask whether Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks have been carried out on the men who have volunteered to stand outside schools. 

A basic DBS check costs £21.50 and shows a basic breakdown of a person’s criminal record. They are typically required to work with children. 

Read more:

• What the wave of St George’s flags across England means for national identity
• From Southport to Epping, social media’s failure to act is fuelling racist violence
• Revealed: Asylum hotel protests dwarfed by runners going to Parkrun

Thomason started crowdfunding to raise money for walkie-talkies, bodycams and other equipment. The GoFundMe raised £3,100 before it was closed down without any money changing hands. When asked whether Thomason would carry out DBS checks, he tells Big Issue that he has limited the 32 volunteers he had at one stage to 15 and was looking at getting DBS checks for them. 

But he also says that he doesn’t believe they are necessary because the men who are patrolling do not go on school grounds and many are also allegedly parents of children at schools. Thomason adds: “We don’t need one [a DBS check]. We’re not working with children. We don’t go on school grounds. We are community members.” 

Reporting from local radio station Roch Valley Radio also revealed messages allegedly linked to the group in a Keep Heywood Safe WhatsApp group Thomason set up. 

Messages from the group, which is open for anyone to join, appear to show racial slurs and anti-
Semitic language. Rochdale Borough Council told Big Issue the contents of the chat have been reported to Greater Manchester Police (GMP). 

When asked about it, Thomason distances himself, saying he set up the group to select volunteers for patrols and there was a closed WhatsApp group for people actually going out on patrols. Big Issue has not seen the contents of this chat. 

A joint letter from the school, GMP and the local authority about the patrols was sent out to parents in Heywood schools on 6 October.  

It says: “While their presence on the street is not, in itself, unlawful, we understand the authorities are monitoring their activities for any criminal, antisocial behaviour or safeguarding concerns.” 

A Rochdale Borough Council spokesperson told Big Issue: “This group is not supported by the council and this message has been circulated to local schools as part of our joint communication with Greater
Manchester Police. 

“Schools have also been asked not to engage with this group or permit them access to their sites.” 

Thomason’s Facebook page talks of approval from GMP. When Big Issue meets him, he says this is going a bit far. He said he had spoken over the phone with GMP and has not been told to back down but also hadn’t been given endorsement. 

“I was wrong to say they’re giving me their full backing and I apologise for that,” says Thomason. 

A GMP spokesperson told Big Issue: “Policing teams across Greater Manchester work with community groups every single day, from speed-watch schemes to local park groups who want to tackle antisocial behaviour in their area. We will always provide the necessary advice to these groups who want to assist their communities. 

“We are aware of a group operating in the Heywood area, and while we do not have a partnership with them, we will work to ensure they follow the appropriate laws and guidance during any activities they carry out. 

“We are additionally working to address concerns raised by members of the public and will take the appropriate action regarding any issues that have been reported to us. 

“The public are always advised to call the police to report a crime, or in the event of an emergency.” 

What these patrols mean for Britain’s streets

Keeping protests away from schools to boost social cohesion has already been recommended to the Westminster government.

Last summer’s Khan Report into Threats to Social Cohesion and Democratic Resilience suggested a 150-metre buffer zone around schools to prevent protests. They also recommended a renewed focus on teaching critical thinking. 

Thomason’s decision to lead patrols comes after a summer of discontent and in a country where there is anger among left-behind communities. Heywood undoubtedly comes under that category. 

Government analysis, published in July, shows 60% of Heywood’s areas come in the top 20% most deprived in England in terms of crime. 

A 2023 report from right-leaning think tank Onward showed Heywood has a social trust score of -15%, which is lower than the England average of -3%. 

When Big Issue visits, Heywood is awash with St George’s flags – a symbol of protest that sprung up from Operation Raise The Colours which is linked to the far-right. The symbolism is echoed on Thomason’s Facebook page. 

There are images of knights with St George’s cross emblazoned on armour and of lions. One image is of a Union Jack with the words: “Fit in or fuck off.” When asked why he invokes that imagery, he tells Big Issue it’s because he recently started reading up on the Knights Templar. The disbanded order of mostly French knights dates back to the Crusades but their story remains a draw for many conspiracists.

“I’d never heard of the Knights Templar until I started these protests,” he said. “And you know what? Basically, my view of the Knights Templar is it was a load of good English men who had good heart, good morals. They all stuck up for each other, and they stuck up against a force that was coming to take over them. 

“I see myself as a Knight Templar. I am protecting the women and kids round here. I’m doing God’s work. And I think that’s what the Knights Templar used to do.” 

There are some indications of Heywood-style patrols happening elsewhere. A Facebook search shows talk of attempts to make a similar idea take root near Leicester driven by anti-immigration sentiments. Sky News recently reported on Sikh communities in the West Midlands enlisting volunteers to walk worshippers home as stats showed religious hate crime hit new heights in England and Wales. 

Thomason is unemployed and has been pouring all his time and resources into the Heywood Community Guards. He tells Big Issue he was in a gang when he grew up in Longsight in Manchester and admits “he’s done a lot of bad things in his past”. 

It’s clear he wants to do something in times he considers “the most unsafe it’s ever been”. He is not willing to stand down patrols until the police or schools themselves tell him to do so – or there is a government announcement that schools will be given greater security. “I get the odd little part-time job here and there if I’m lucky. I do any little thing I can. But I’m skint,” says Thomason. “Through mental health and stress, I can’t really work. So this has just been… like last week, I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep. All I did was this, so my friends took my phone off me. I had no money for food. I just spent all my time on this.” 

But his actions raise difficult questions: where is the line between communities policing their own streets and vigilante justice? Is social media warping how we feel about safety in our communities and is that translating on to the streets? That experiment risks being played out on the streets of Heywood as the patrols continue. 

With the rise of populist politics, a feeling of communities being left behind and anger at the state of the country, time will tell if it is repeated elsewhere. 

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