Travellers in appeal to UN over council eviction bid

Travellers facing eviction from a camp site that featured on TV's My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding went to the UN in Geneva in a bid to stop the move.

Representatives of the Dale Farm site in Essex and the Irish Travellers Movement submitted a report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

They are backed by Amnesty International, which warned that the 86 families, including 110 children, on the illegal site could be left without homes, medical treatment or schooling.

Basildon council has ordered the families to leave by August 31, after which it will cut off water and electricity to the site - Britain's biggest traveller settlement.

Council leader Tony Ball said: "Dale Farm has been illegally developed on green belt land. We have a duty to uphold the law and the overwhelming majority of locals expect us to do that.

"We are not discriminating against travellers. We are treating them as we would any person who built on the green belt without permission."

The Dale Farm travellers lost a Court of Appeal case in 2009.