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Despite my many years of anti-racist activism and campaigning, I am deeply shocked, horrified and alarmed at the brutal racist treatment of Lewis Hamilton and his family at the hands of so called Formula One supporters. Surely, there can be no place in modern civil society for such barbaric inhumane behaviour as that on public display at the Montmelo facility, near Barcelona.

I have been campaigning against racism for over twenty years, so impassioned had I been in challenging race inequality and discrimination that I put aside my academic qualification in mathematics and career in the field, in order to volunteer for the cause.

I have not seen such open hostility and racial taunting since my school days - although as Director of Westminster Race Equality Council, I dealt with race hate casework that came remarkably close.

Hamilton reflects significant achievement against adversity and signifies what can be accomplished when doors and opportunities are opened to talented Black young people. He doesn’t deserve all the nasty racist ‘blogs’ about him available on Spanish internet sites. Too often racism acts as a barrier to progress for Black communities, yet I have no doubt that Lewis Hamilton’s father played a key role in empowering him to overcome such attacks even when it is so overtly and unexpectedly on display.

Such open and blatant sacrilege reflects a bygone era in British society and sport which we hope has long gone, the ousting of which we can credit to the pioneering role of Black sport people, alongside activist like Lord Herman Ouseley in for example, his campaign to ‘kick racism out of football’.

Tackling covert racism, whether intentional or not has become a greater challenge, nonetheless huge progress has been made. However, there is no room for complacency and thus rightly the Football Association (FA) has recently established a body that I have been appointed to; a race equality advisory committee with direct influence to FA Board decisions. We owe such progress of course to those early Black footballers who in a similar way were brave enough like Lewis Hamilton to step out onto the pitch and into the lions den of racism and racist chanting.

Spanish authorities ought to take note because all the evidence indicates that the growth of racism in sports often reflects a wider worrying trend in society.

Hamilton is set to win several world championships and is widely tipped to beat Michael Schumacher’s all time record of seven Formula One world titles thus Hamilton’s tormentors should not be allowed to get in the way of such progress

The FIA, Formula One governing body and the Spanish motorsport federation, the REFA, need to tack swift and unequivocal action. However, nothing but a total lifetime ban and effective prosecution of the offenders as well as sanctions on the Spanish circuits will suffice.