Bakery Owner receives scary Racist Abuse

A bakery owner has revealed that she has been receiving racist abuse.

Jaz Woodward, aged 23, believes an individual has been sending her threatening images and messages, many with racist and malicious content.

Jaz, who is of mixed-race heritage, says the online abuse began after she opened a new bakery business in Powys, Wales in October 2022.

She explained: “They were just nasty, not racist to begin with.

“Then I think because I wasn’t retaliating they got worse to try and get a reaction from me.”

Jaz said there was silence for a few weeks but when she used an anonymous question option on her Instagram Story, things took a turn for the worse. She continued:

“I posted it on my story to show that it is not acceptable to say something like this, especially anonymously.

“I said ‘if you have got a problem with me let’s talk about it face-to-face and I am happy to answer any questions if I have done anything to upset you’.

“I’ve probably had about 100 messages – a lot of them were using the N-word, quite threatening and then they were taking pictures of my car, my house when I’m shopping.

“Messages saying ‘I know where you are’, that they were going to burn the shop down, just lots of horrible things and a lot of it was not nice.

“I don’t even want to repeat what they said.”

Jaz said when she first received the messages, she did not want to serve her customers and would stay at the back of the shop while her mother served.

The bakery owner said: “I would like to think it is just one terrible person and not a group but I don’t know.

“It’s different to what I have had before – I’ve always had racist comments because I am a mixed-race woman in a white town.

“I look different to everyone else.

“A lot of it hasn’t bothered me because there are a lot of people not knowing where that line is.”

Jaz says she contacted the police about the messages on December 27, 2022.

However, Dyfed-Powys Police says it did not receive a report.

Two officers visited the bakery after reading about her experiences.

In a statement, Dyfed-Powys Police said:

“We can confirm we have not received a report about these incidents, however after reading about them in the media, our officers in Welshpool very quickly made efforts to contact the victim.

“We take reports of this kind very seriously, and with cooperation from the victim we will carry out all possible enquiries to eliminate these abusive messages.”