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IT was, as most local people agree, an incident waiting to happen. A native Briton, in this case a 10-year-old child, was allegedly beaten by an immigrant adult. In Chatham, Kent, racism is cited by both parties.

Not so far away in Littlehampton, West Sussex, three Lithuanians were beaten senseless by yobs from the town. Racist taunts were heard as punches and kicks were landed.

Charges are likely to be brought in both cases, leading to court hearings that will lay bare Britain’s simmering racial tensions.

In Chatham and Littlehampton, a racially fraught nation will be seen in microcosm. The word many people are using is “tinderbox”.

Jake Stedman, the 10-year-old boy, was left with two black eyes after apparently being attacked by a Slovakian woman wielding an iron bar near his school, Luton Junior, in Chatham. He has been accused of spitting at her and yelling the words, “Go back to your own country”.

Shortly afterwards two teenage girls were arrested in the town for shouting racial abuse at another Slovakian.

In Littlehampton, the victims were beaten by a gang heard boasting they were off to “fight the Russians”.

Chatham and Littlehampton are not social blackspots. Nonetheless, a clash of cultures is emerging – caused by recent immigration – that is fulfilling the predictions of many pessimistic social pundits.

More than 70,000 Slovakians have been registered to work in Britain since 2004, when Slovakia joined the EU.

Because of its ports and proximity to Gatwick, Kent has become a magnet for many immigrants.

At Jake Stedman’s school, which prides itself as being above the ordinary – “A school where all children are active good citizens”, according to its website – 32 of the 372 pupils are Slovakian.

Parents and pupils say tensions have been simmering not far below the surface for months.

Police confirmed they are investigating 13 race-related crimes committed in the Luton area of Chatham in the past six months.

Carla Spanton, 35, said she was taking her six-year-old daughter out of Luton Junior School because of racially motivated bullying.

She said: “It’s being covered up. They are concentrating on what’s going on outside but ignoring what’s going on inside.

“Our kids are being threatened with having their throats slit. It’s happening every day and no one is taking any notice. I feel I am being made a scapegoat because I had the guts to stand up and tell people how it is. I am not the least bit racist but I will not stand by and watch my daughter being bullied by anyone.

“I know for a fact that there are problems happening within the school along a racial divide but you are not allowed to say that these days.

“If this is not stopped we will have race riots here – that is not just a dramatic statement.

“This used to be a good school where the thought of race problems was ridiculous.

“Chatham is a tough town but I never thought it was a racist town and I was born and raised here.”

Another mother, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, said: “The Slovakians stick together, like pack animals, and they can be very intimidating.

“Doing the school run is scary. I was once surrounded by about 30 of them. I didn’t understand what they were saying but it sounded aggressive and I was spat at.

“Everyone here feels the same. This immigration is out of control and it’s going to get a whole lot worse.

“Nobody was at all surprised about the incident involving the boy and the woman. “There will be a lot more like that. The youngsters are carrying knives and it is getting out of control”

Gill Hodge, a cleaner in the Luton area, put it succinctly: “There’s a problem with foreigners. They don’t like us very much and we don’t like them.”

Antipathy runs just as deep with the immigrants themselves. One Slovakian woman, the mother of a boy at the Chatham school, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “They are waiting outside the school when they’ve finished and they’re always threatening him. Three or four boys attacked him last time.

“We don’t want any trouble but trouble is coming. It seems to be the English way to reject anybody who isn’t English. If a person is spitting at somebody and racially taunting them, it must be the victim’s right to respond. It doesn’t matter if it’s only a 10-year-old boy.”

In Chatham and Littlehampton, authorities have responded in the only way they can, with increased vigilance and calls for calm. Not good enough, say locals, who can only see worse on the horizon.

In West Sussex, police have launched extra patrols, comprising officers in stab-proof vests for the first time.

Arun District Council, which covers the area, has already issued anti-racism booklets aimed at easing the tensions.

Their principal aim is “myth-busting”, contradicting anti-immigration material that has been circulating around the town. It will come as no surprise that the anti-immigration British People's Party is increasingly active – and popular – in both areas.

In Chatham, local beat officers have been drafted in to keep an eye on things when the school bell rings for home. Parents say their children get nervous if they don’t see a uniform on their way home.

WITHOUT hard facts and concrete proposals from a government that cannot give us a basic head count of the number of immigrants here or coming, there are platitudes aplenty.

Jillian Oliver, the head teacher of Luton Junior School, has so far declined to comment on an issue that must nevertheless tarnish her every working day. It is left to Rose Collinson, the Medway district’s director of children’s services, to claim this week: “Children in this school are safe. They are learning, they are making good progress and they are playing well together. It is a calm place to be.”

Chatham and Aylesford Labour MP Jonathan Shaw also has an upbeat message. He visited the school and posed, thumbs-up, with a multi-racial group of pupils.

Speaking of the incident involving Jake Stedman, Mr Shaw said: “When the matter was brought to my attention, I arranged to visit the school and see the situation.

“I found the school happy and calm, where children of different backgrounds were getting on well with each other. The school is working well with the police, the community support officers and the wider community to play its part in promoting good race relations among pupils and parents.”

Try telling that to the likes of Mrs Spanton, who concluded, “I want Slovakians to be happy and I want local kids to be happy.

“But until we recognise there is a problem we cannot move forward. I fear some very bad problems on the street of this town very soon.”

City dwellers are largely accustomed to and inviting of cultural diversity. The events of the last month have proved that in these two little corners of the nation, integration appears to be a much more bitter pill to swallow.