A white woman who encouraged a group of white girls to beat up a Black teenager outside their school near London, England, last year confessed to her role in the attack.
Winnie Connors will now spend 20 months in prison after admitting to intentionally encouraging or assisting an offense. The 40-year-old was seen on viral video spurring on a 16-year-old girl and two 11-year-old girls as they jumped a 15-year-old Black girl outside Thomas Knyvett College in Surrey last February.
That video shows Connors and the 16-year-old approaching the victim as she was leaving school. Connors orders the 16-year-old girl to “get her,” referring to the Black teen, and the 16-year-old starts hitting the victim.
“Punch the face off her!” the woman yells.
As they trade punches, the two 11-year-old girls join the assault and start viciously kicking the victim and pulling her braids. Surrey Police said the 16-year-old even ripped a section of the victim’s braids from the front of her head.
Connors is heard instigating the fight and directing the 16-year-old and 11-year-old girls throughout the entire beating. Early reports and a petition indicate that Connors may have been the mother of the older girl involved in the fight.
Police suspected the attack was racially motivated and arrested Connors, a 17-year-old girl who was also linked to the fight, the younger girls, and a 43-year-old man at the scene. Despite being charged with racially aggravated grievous bodily harm, Connors was never convicted on that count.
The 16-year-old girl who was the main assailant fled the scene and later turned herself into police. She pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm in October 2023. She was ordered to pay a £300 penalty charge and was also issued a restraining order.
The 17-year-old girl also confessed to an actual bodily harm charge in connection to the assault and to attacking a friend of the victim. The 43-year-old man and 11-year-old girls were cleared of any wrongdoing.
In the weeks leading up to the attack, the 16-year-old’s sister was involved in a verbal dispute with one of the victim’s friends, so the victim got involved. Police say she suffered minor injuries from the attack.
The assault led to widespread backlash against the school’s leadership for their inadequate response and demands for members of Parliament to launch an investigation.
