A BRADFORD community figure has welcomed the guilty verdict handed down to ex-American police officer Derek Chauvin after the murder of George Floyd last year, but says there are still "lessons to be learned" on both sides of the Atlantic when it comes to race and racism.

Dr Javed Bashir, a safeguarding consultant with Bradford-based Strengthening Faith Institutions, says that the murder of George Floyd - who was black - by Chauvin, who is white, was a "barbaric" example of racism and police brutality.

Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes during the incident in May 2020, ignoring him pleading and saying that he couldn't breathe. It sparked worldwide protests, including some right here in Bradford.

Yesterday, a jury found Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter after a three-week trial.

Although pleased with the decision, Dr Bashir said that "the story of George Floyd is not new, and will not be the last one", unless, he continued, "organisations change their practices of institutional racism".

"The horrific murder of George Floyd still haunts me. I simply could not watch the news bulletin containing a still image of Chauvin, with his hand casually in his pocket, committing murder in such a cruel and barbaric fashion", he added.

"But this incident, however chilling, will not be the last one unless there is change. As Martin Luther King Jr wrote from jail in Alabama in 1963, 'injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere'.

"It’s time to speak up and challenge institutions, individuals and cultures in which people feel that they have the right to racially oppress others for being different or for being a different colour.

"Yesterday's ruling should not be celebrated merely as a symbolic event, but we need to learn lessons from it, that we should not be going back to the old normal, where black and ethnic minority people and their contributions to society are invisible.

"'BAME' people have routinely faced greater obstacles and worse outcomes. We need to work for a new normal of fairer workplaces and a fairer society. But it won’t happen unless we make it happen.

"Over the years, systematic and institutional racism has become more malignant, and the denial more sophisticated.

"We should not be complacent about promoting good community relations, providing opportunities and taking appropriate deterrent actions where necessary.

"One of the most fundamental truths of our human condition is that we cannot take control of our present, or shape our future, without knowledge of our past.

"We cannot change the past, but we can change the present and the future, and we must do. 

"One of the key outcomes of this case should be that institutional racism must be stamped out, and mechanisms must be put in place to make that change. In my view, nothing less is fair or workable."