Outside a nondescript house on a residential street in Chelmsley Wood, scattered glass lies across the lawn. A downstairs kitchen window bears signs of damage, and an upstairs window has been entirely smashed. A neighbour cooking in his window comes outside to take a look. He says he’d seen pictures of the damage online, but didn’t even know it was next door.
“Obviously I recognised the building was from this area but I didn't know it was [my neighbour’s],” he tells me. “Ah, he’s a nice bloke as well… It’s a shame this”.
On Monday night a group attacked the property, smashing the windows and pelting it with stones. The same thing happened on Tuesday night. And again on Wednesday night. The landlord at the property, The Dispatch understands, has said he won’t be fixing damage until the attacks stop.
The cracked window and shattered glass at the HMO. Photo: Olivia Lee.
Attacks on HMOs by masked ‘Patriot’ groups have become a frequent occurrence in recent weeks around the country. Last week, our sister title The Mill reported on a quiet street in Salford where residents awoke in the early hours of Thursday morning to find vigilantes scrawling ‘NO HMO’ over their windows. One woman, who is black, said she’d “never had anything like it before.” As it turned out, her house wasn’t even an HMO.
But the property in Chelmsley Wood, which has since been evacuated in fear of the resident’s safety, has gained a whole other level of notoriety. That’s because a video, showing three Indian students who lived in the house being approached by a large group in a nearby park, hours before the first attack, has now become a global news story. In the video the group is dressed in black and approaches the students. They then demand to know what the students are doing and where they live. “What you need to do is stay away from a children's park,” one of the group says to the men. “Do not come round here again. Do not be seen here again. This is your final warning”.
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After it was shared online, Metro ran a story which has since been shared thousands of times on various social media platforms. The story has been picked up by local titles, but also titles overseas — such as The Times of India.
West Midlands Police have since released a statement reminding people that only they have powers of stop and search. On Wednesday evening at 8:40, following the third attack on the HMO, an arrest was made of a 15-year-old boy.
But who is responsible? The virality of the footage from the park has brought a large amount of attention to a newly-formed group operating in Chelmsley Wood. They call themselves the Chelmsley Wood Patriots. Facebook posts by their leader, Rachel Burbidge, in her mid 40s, have confirmed that it was her group patrolling the park that night, though she insists they were only carrying out patrols in order to protect women and children.
Since the park incident, Burbidge has been posting on Facebook with extraordinary frequency. Insisting that hers is a mission of peace, she strongly denies allegations of criminal damage or intimidation. At one stage she even seemed to suggest the images being circulated of the smashed HMO windows were AI-generated.
Keen to understand what exactly is going on, I reached out to Burbidge, explaining that I’m interested in learning more about the group. She was initially friendly, telling me that I'd timed my message well: her group was preparing for a recruitment drive of female members — to take place next Tuesday.
The group was formed four weeks ago, with an inaugural march taking place in Chelmsley Wood in late September. Several Reform councillors, including Phil Tierney, were seen in videos at this event. So-called ‘patrols’ have been sent out every night since Monday, which involves units of 10-15 people walking the streets, all in black and balaclavas. According to one post on the group, it appears that Rachel receives alerts of “incidents” in the area from other members. This means that texts are sent by other patriots, often containing photos of lone South-Asian men in public spaces, that are then posted publicly to their Facebook platform. The patrols then respond to these alerts of potential wrongdoing, as images in Bluebell Park on Facebook preceded the incident on Monday.
The Chelmsley Wood Patriots are only the latest local branch of what is becoming a nationwide movement of masked patrols. Its figurehead is Danny Tommo, the far-right activist and erstwhile bodyguard to Tommy Robinson. Tommo was charged with criminal damage in September relating to a video of him slashing a dingy in the English channel. In one video of a ‘Patriot’ group from the Midlands, a group of dozens of masked men, dressed in black, stand saying a prayer together with their heads bowed: “Heavenly father, grant strength and unwavering courage to the men who stand before me today at the precipice of great sacrifice”. To the right hand side of the screen a flare is going off.
As elsewhere, the situation in Chelmsley Wood has been becoming increasingly febrile in recent months. Green councillor Max McLoughlin tells The Dispatch that in one incident photographs were circulated of a group of young Asian people moving into a local home, apparently suspected to be an HMO. The home in question transpired to be a domestic violence shelter. Denise Boyce, a parish councillor in Smith’s Wood, tells us about conflicts outside primary schools, and animal excrement spread on her aunt’s car – likely due to her actively speaking out on the issues of recent weeks.
Shesh Sheshabhatter was a councillor for Chelmsley Wood until May this year, when he lost his seat to Tierney (who has now stepped down following an ITV investigation into comments made by Reform members). He says he's witnessed a stark change in the way people respond to him and his family of late, something he’s “never experienced before.” A neighbour whose charity work he had once supported had now been filmed speaking at local marches. Shesh believes “normal people are now worried about going out after dark.”
One of the members of the Chelmsley Wood group, and this appears to be crucial context, is Alexandra Whyte. Burbidge knows Whyte from the Telford Patriots group. In 2024, Whyte’s sister Rhiannon was murdered by a Sudanese asylum seeker — stabbed 24 times with a screwdriver. Their mother, Siobhan Whyte, has since become an outspoken critic of the government’s asylum policies, and has campaigned for the introduction of a law to bring in stronger checks and electronic tagging of asylum seekers awaiting processing. Rhiannon’s killer, Deng Majek, has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 29 years.
Online, Burbidge has continued to deny any connection between her group and the repeated attacks on the HMO. She called the claims “fake news” and said she would “refuse to give them my energy.” On Tuesday evening she claimed that she had spoken with police confirming no reports of racial abuse or criminal damage. Our reporting shows clearly that this is stretching the truth.
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