If Patrick Hutchinson had a penny for every time someone has asked him whether he got a thank you from the man whose life he saved, he says he’d be a very rich man. “And if I had another penny for the shocked expression I get when I say I haven’t heard a word from him, well…” A wry shrug follows.
Hutchinson’s act of bravery became one of the definitive moments of a summer fraught with unrest. On 13 June, the image of him hoisting an injured rightwing protester over his shoulders and getting him to safety during a rally to protect British monuments went viral before he had even made it home that day.
Despite warnings to stay away, the 50-year-old father and grandfather of three says that he and four friends specifically went to central London that day “just in case”. They had lived through what he describes as “senseless white rage” before. “We knew how aggressive it could be. We knew we had to be there to protect vulnerable Black Lives Matter protesters and to protect our black boys from harm.”
The day had been ugly with tension. Protesters rallied by Tommy Robinson, who then failed to appear himself, descended on central London. Racist chants were yelled out across Trafalgar Square and broadcast all over social media. Violence simmered. Ostensibly, the far right were there to demonstrate against a series of Black Lives Matter protests that had been staged in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. A statue of slave trader Edward Colston had been toppled in Bristol the week before; gangs of drunk, angry, white men claimed they were in London to protect British monuments. Instead, one was charged for urinating at a memorial dedicated to a police officer who lost his life in a terrorist attack.
“It was heavy going,” says Hutchinson. “Me and the boys had already stopped three other incidents from happening before we even got to Waterloo Bridge.” Hutchinson and his friends are fitness buffs. Beefcakes with years of martial arts training, they had formed a group called Ark Security to protect young protesters from getting caught up in violence. They didn’t expect to have to save 55-year-old Bryn Male, a retired transport police officer and Millwall FC football fan, who had reportedly been drinking heavily before he was abandoned by his friends and injured in the fray.
I always like to hear the stories where someone’s life has been changed … I didn’t think I could have the same effect
“A Rastafarian guy was trying to protect him,” says Hutchinson, who could see that a scuffle had broken out and that Male was being punched. “There was a mob at that point and it was getting ugly. We just acted really quickly, bundled people out of the way, got him out of there.” Cheers and claps followed as Hutchinson walked Male over to a line of police officers.
“It’s the police who shocked me most that day,” he says, recalling that moment of adrenaline and confusion. “Living with the image of a man being beaten to death isn’t something I could stomach. How do the police do that? They just seemed to be standing there watching it and filming with their selfie sticks. One of them said ‘well done’ to me, but I couldn’t really comprehend it.”
Hutchinson downplays being called a hero, even though he says the incident has transformed every aspect of his life. He has since written a book with poet Sophia Thakur called Everyone Versus Racism: A Letter To My Children, and set up the charity United to Change and Inspire, to fight racial inequality in Britain. He has been featured on news channels across the world, and the photograph of him taken by Reuters photographer Dylan Martinez has been made into a mural in Lewisham.
His social media following has also exploded; he had just more than 1,500 followers on Instagram for his fitness training and coaching before June. It’s now closer to 30,000 and Hutchinson plans to set up his own fitness channel and app.
“I always like to hear the stories where someone’s life has been changed, when an ordinary person gets recognised for something,” he says. “They made me smile. I didn’t think I could have the same effect.”
Hutchinson grew up on a south London council estate with his older sister Pauline. Their Jamaican mother worked several jobs to keep the single-parent family afloat; he only really developed a relationship with his father in his late teens, after a life-altering trip to the barber shop revealed that he had two brothers living nearby. Hutchinson first became a father at 20 and worked in IT in the City for 25 years before becoming a sports coach.
Now he has a PR, a manager and a publisher and is in a realm of modern fame and influence that he hopes to spin for good. Hutchinson has taken calls from the Rev Al Sharpton and Prince Harry. He has met Michaela Coel and Reggie Yates and been featured in GQ and Men’s Health. Sadiq Khan wrote him a personal letter of thanks, while Lord Michael Hastings, a crossbench peer, is now his mentor. “It’s been phenomenal,” he says, still processing the whirlwind of the last few months.
Commentators have pounced on Hutchinson’s image as one that proves the strength of unity over division, of human kindness over brutality. Hutchinson is uncomfortable with some of the lionisation, knowing full well that racism hasn’t been eased by turning the other cheek.
“Some people have asked me why I bothered saving him, and I understand their frustration,” he says. “But my natural instinct is to protect the vulnerable. If that man had died, the whole Black Lives Matter movement would have been torpedoed. Young black men would have gone to prison and had their lives ruined. I wasn’t just protecting that guy – I was protecting us.”
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