Leonard Hockey and the violent crusade against begging

This chapter is a compassionate endeavour that seeks to trace the political and institutional processes that played out and how Leonard Hockey was constructed as the personification of anti-begging tropes. It will demonstrate how he was caught up in a growing intolerance against begging and street homelessness, that was supported by political, judicial and media apparatus of the state, which appear to be organised separately, but are structurally linked (see Hall et al, 2013; Burnett, 2017). Drawing on my experience of working in homelessness, as a resettlement support worker, this chapter will demonstrate how the test case to exclude Leonard Hockey from Manchester city centre was part of a much wider anti-homeless and anti-begging ideological project advanced at local and national state levels, and through which, Leonard Hockey was weaponised. Although no agency or agent caused interpersonal harm to Hockey, this chapter will argue how Hockey was subject to a form of institutional violence that culminated in his death.