Pauline Pearce did not know she was being filmed when she spoke out against the rioters running amok in her Hackney neighbourhood. Standing in the darkness, on a debris-strewn pavement in front of graffiti that read ‘Fuck Cameroon’, she seemed a lone voice of conscience amid the carnage. ‘Get real black people. Get real!’ she shouted, waving her walking stick. ‘You lot piss me the fuck off! I’m shamed to be a Hackney person. Because we are not all gathering together and fighting for a cause. We are running out of Foot Locker and thiefin’ shoes.’ Within hours, the video clip had hundreds of thousands of views online: Pearce learned of her accidental fame the next day when strangers came up to her and asked if she was the woman everyone was talking about on Twitter.
‘It’s been insane,’ Pearce says, shaking her head and gripping her stick tightly. ‘I’ve been on This Morning and I can’t walk out on to the street without someone wanting to thank me for speaking out.’
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