A ‘STOP the boats’-supporting fisherman with dozens of previous convictions ranted that he was “jailed for a flag” after being locked up for racist abuse.

Kevin Goudie shouted “f*****g joke man” before being led downstairs at Ayr Sheriff Court to start a two-year prison term.

He previously pleaded guilty to scaling the roof of a mosque in Ayr and planting a ‘Stop the boats’ flag following a demonstration in the town on June 9.

The rally came in response to an assault in Belfast which sparked protests across Scotland.

Goudie, 34, whom the court heard was a ‘fisherman by trade’ and has more than 30 criminal convictions, was also caught yelling “P**i b*****d” as he clambered down from the religious building.

The incident took place at the Al Farooq Education and Community Centre and Mosque, after around 100 people had earlier gathered at Wellington Square.

CCTV footage showed Goudie climbing the roof to plant his flag, shouting, before climbing back down, laughing and shouting: “P**i b*****d.”

He was arrested days later.

Defence solicitor Steven Maxwell told a previous hearing: “It is difficult to mitigate this divisive behaviour. There is a record and he has other matters outstanding.

“His level of intoxication is not to excuse but to explain this behaviour. He is a fisherman by trade, he works hard but unfortunately plays far too hard.”

Sheriff David Young told him: “In light of the nature of you climbing on the roof of a mosque and shouting racist and abusive remarks, I wish a [background] report.

“Until then you will be remanded.”

When he returned to court for sentencing last week, Mr Maxwell said: “In an extremely inebriated state he made his way to the High Street with three others in total. They reached a converted working men’s club which is now a local mosque.

“He came back down after the offending banner was attached to the building. It’s actually a handmade flag pinned onto a 6×2 piece of wood.

“Of course, the offending comment he cannot recollect making, but concedes in his state the comment may have been made by him in the way libelled.

“He has been at pains to point out he has many colleagues in that area of work of all ethnicities and has no idea how the flag came into his possession. There had been a meeting or protest, he hadn’t been at that, but this item had come from there.

“He has been remanded exclusively for this matter since.

“Mr Goudie, when sober, is a hard-working man as a fisherman and when released will return to the sea. He will return to the sea as the captain of the boat is prepared to work with him.

“He has another matter, non-analogous and an assault.”

Sheriff Colin Pettigrew said: “I acknowledge you pleaded guilty at an early stage.

“The behaviour was reprehensible by climbing on the roof of what’s now a mosque, with a message I’m not going to utter, and you then made racist remarks, again I will not repeat that.

“It was either your intention to stir up racial hatred or, given your state of sobriety or lack of, actions likely to result in hatred being stirred up – racial hatred against a certain group.

“You committed the offence while subject to two bail orders imposed at Ayr Sheriff Court and the record you have is appalling.

“You have 34 previous convictions at summary and solemn level, with a disregard for court instructions, breaches of bail conditions, of non-harassment orders and community payback orders.

“The offence is a serious one that could have caused significant emotional harm and could have encouraged others to act in this inappropriate manner.

“It is of particular concern to this court and the public that you chose to plant this at a mosque. A mosque, church or synagogue should be somewhere people feel safe and not fear being abused.

“I am satisfied the custodial threshold is clearly met and there is no other way to deal with you than custody.”

He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, backdated to June 15.

Shaking his head in the dock after gasps from the public gallery, Goudie said “f*****g joke man”, “for a f*****g flag!” and “honestly man”.

As family friends in the courtroom urged him to calm down, he said: “No wonder, for a f*****g stupid flag”.

After he was led downstairs, Sheriff Pettigrew told Goudie’s defence: “I didn’t hear anything, Mr Maxwell.”

Mr Maxwell replied: “I’ll have to hear it later.” Sheriff Pettigrew added, “Well, I’ll leave you to it”.

Ayr Advertiser

A man who attacked a woman with a knife and subjected her to weeks of violent abuse, including rape and sexual assault, has been jailed for 24 years.

Police began their investigation on 30 November 2025 when the victim told a relative that she had been attacked by James White, of St Michael’s Crescent, who then fled the address.

The victim said White, 39, had used a knife to cut her on her abdomen, and she had suffered bruising over her face, as well as injuries to her back and torso.

White was arrested shortly after, and pleaded not guilty to charges relating to assault, sexual assault, rape and domestic abuse. A jury at Warwick Crown Court found him guilty of all offences on 9 June.
‘Horrific violence’

Further police enquiries had found that between 17 October and 30 November 2025, White was involved in a pattern of violent and abusive behaviour against the victim, including rape and sexual assault.

Detective Constable Baylie Cairns, from Warwickshire Police, said White subjected the victim to “a campaign of horrific abuse, violence and sexual assaults” and his sentence “prevents him from posing a risk to the victim and others.

Cairns added: “She [the victim] showed remarkable bravery and courage in speaking to me about the offences committed against her.

“While nothing can undo the harm caused, we hope this sentence offers her some comfort and reassurance that justice has been served.”

BBC News

In many ways, the case heard this week at Glasgow sheriff court was, unfortunately, not out of the ordinary.

It was one of thousands of domestic violence trials to have passed through the Scottish courts since new legislation was introduced in 2019 to clamp down on a grimly persistent problem.

A woman had testified that her former partner had waged a campaign of terror against her, and that she suffered abuse while she was pregnant with his child. The court heard that her partner had grabbed her by the throat, pinned her to a door, kicked her off a bed and sent her abusive texts, sometimes calling her a “fat slag” and a “little bitch”.

What caught the eye of onlookers, however, was the identity of the man convicted.

James English may not be a household name, but in the online world he is a star, a podcaster with millions of followers across several social media platforms for his interview show, Anything Goes.

English has won plaudits for securing high profile guests, such as the footballer Paul Gascoigne and Rebecca Loos, who allegedly had an affair with David Beckham.

However, he has also attracted controversy for his ties to figures from the far right, particularly the English Defence League founder Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, more commonly known as Tommy Robinson. Last September, English appeared at Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally, describing the event as “legendary” and praising Robinson for organising it.

During the course of his podcasting, English has also platformed personalities from what has become known as the manosphere.

Other guests on English’s podcast have included men accused of serious sexual offences, such as Andrew Tate, the internet personality recently charged with rape and sex trafficking, and the footballer David Goodwillie.

Goodwillie and his former teammate, David Robertson, were ordered to pay £100,000 in damages to Denise Clair after a judge in a civil case ruled they had raped her after a night out in 2011.

English, a 42-year-old father of three from Larkhall, Lanarkshire, reinvented himself as an independent journalist after appearing on Glow, a failed reality television show billed as a Glaswegian Towie.

Although he says he does not necessarily share the views of his guests, he has given a range of far-right activists a sympathetic platform. As well as hosting Robinson several times, he has interviewed the commentator Katie Hopkins and the Raise the Colours founder Ryan Bridge.

The Unite the Kingdom march was “beautiful” and “very patriotic”, English said. “The people that have been on stage speaking, Katie Hopkins, Tommy Robinson, it’s been unbelievable,” he said, on a clip posted on Robinson’s X account. “It’s been great to see so many people getting behind each other and uniting for a better future

English is one of many men with ties to the far right who have found themselves accused of intimate partner violence.

Project Starlight, a 2021 study commissioned by Counter Terrorism Policing, found that about a third of people referred to the government’s Prevent programme had links to a domestic abuse incident, either as an offender, victim, witness or a combination of all three. In 18% of these cases, extreme rightwing ideology was present.

Deniz Ugur, the deputy director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said police data had “consistently shown that a significant proportion of men arrested during far-right riots are already known to the police for domestic abuse”.

The Guardian previously revealed that 41% of those arrested in the 2024 riots, prompted by the murders of three young girls in Southport, had been reported to the police for alleged domestic abuse. After the riots, 21% were accused of similar offences.

English had already been charged with abusing the woman, a model he met on Instagram, by the time he travelled to London for the Unite the Kingdom protest. One of its central themes was the threat supposedly posed by migrant men to British women and girls. “It’s all about saving the children,” English said.

Some speakers promoted conspiracies about migration, including the “great replacement theory – the suggestion that there is a plot to replace white Europeans with people from other races. While English described the march as “peaceful”, the Metropolitan police said its officers faced “unacceptable violence” from some demonstrators, more than 20 of whom were arrested.

This week, Sheriff David Hall, who heard English’s case without a jury, convicted him of engaging in a course of abusive conduct towards his former partner between July 2022 and November 2023. The single charge included 19 allegations, six of which Hall judged to have been proved. He described the woman as “credible and reliable”.

Alice Russell Harris, public affairs lead at the domestic abuse charity Refuge, said: “The manosphere, which significantly overlaps with far-right communities, has helped amplify misogynistic narratives that objectify and seek to control women, casting women as subordinate to men and suggesting that those who reject male expectations deserve punishment. These ideas can directly promote abuse – both online and offline – by encouraging men to engage in coercion, control and related harms.”

English, who will be sentenced next month, was not in court to hear Hall’s verdict on Tuesday. However, the next day, he used his social media platforms to issue a rallying cry to his followers, sharing misinformation about the legal basis for his conviction.

“Men need to be worried, especially in Scotland,” he said. “Ladies, if you have a brother or a son, you should also be worried, because women can say anything and it’s a man’s job to prove his innocence.” He added that, in Scotland, “accusations are enough to get the man charged”.

In fact, Scottish law is underpinned by the principle of corroboration, where two independent sources of evidence are required to prove a criminal accusation. Defendants are innocent until proved guilty and the testimony of a single witness – no matter how compelling – is not enough to secure a conviction.

Neither English nor any of the nine people he claimed could support his version of events took the stand. English said this was because he was “so confident” he would be cleared. “I should never have been charged, never mind convicted,” he said.

Ugur said: “It is no surprise to see a convicted perpetrator of domestic abuse and prominent figure in the far right promote deeply harmful misinformation about violence against women and girls.

“Most victims do not report to the police, and those who do, know how many hurdles there are to seeing a conviction due to institutional cultures of victim blaming and failures to treat violence against women and girls with the seriousness it warrants.”

Despite the headlines his case has generated, English has remained defiant, criticising the mainstream media for covering it. “People need to be wary, because if they want you, they’ll find something to get you on,” he said, adding that he was “tired of men getting fucked over”.

He did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian, but vowed on his social media channels to continue broadcasting. “I’m still going to keep doing what I’m doing,” he said. “If anything, it’s just fuelled me to keep raising the bar.”

The Guardian

Daniel Thomas, known as Danny Tommo, is charged with trespass at Dover port to ‘film and shout at vessels arriving’

A man is facing charges of trespass and harassment after allegedly entering the Port of Dover to film and shout at boats arriving on the British coast.

Daniel Thomas, who describes himself as an anti-migrant activist, is facing six charges brought by the private police force for the Port of Dover over activities in March and April this year.

At Margate magistrates court on Thursday, Mr Thomas, who is also known as Danny Tommo, pleaded guilty to going into a restricted harbour area at Western Jet Foil, a short-term holding facility for small boat migrants, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse on 31 March.

Mr Thomas, 37, pleaded not guilty to the other five charges, which included using threatening or abusive words or behaviour to cause distress on 1 April, and trespassing on Dover Western Docks and the Dunkirk Jetty “to film and shout at vessels arriving” on 6 April, as well as using racially-abusive words or behaviour to cause harassment or distress.

The Port of Dover has a non-Home Office police force funded by the port authority not the government. Officers in the force have the same powers as other constables in forces throughout the UK.

The court heard that Mr Thomas is currently living in a caravan.

Speaking ahead of his court appearance on Thursday, Mr Thomas said: “The reason I am hear is because of my activism and my exposés in Dover. I did what I did to bring you, the public, some of the truth of what is happening on the south coast.”

The Independent

A Scottish podcaster has been found guilty of domestic abuse against a former partner.

James English, 43, repeatedly attacked the woman – a model and influencer – at a flat in Glasgow and elsewhere between July 2022 and November 2023.

English, from Larkhall, starred in Scottish reality TV show Glow, before becoming the host of the Anything Goes podcast which has more than 800,000 subscribers on YouTube.

He was convicted of engaging in a course of behaviour which was abusive to a partner or ex-partner after a 12-day trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court.

The single charge included a total of 19 allegations, with six proven. One allegation had been withdrawn mid-trial by the Crown.

The court heard the pair had met through social media in July 2022.

The woman – who gave evidence remotely – told the trial English was “nice at first” and the relationship moved “fast”.

The first act of violence came when they were lying together in the early hours of the morning and English kicked the woman off the bed after she refused to give him a cuddle.

The woman said she felt “shocked” and wanted to leave. English joined her five minutes later in the living room.

She said: “He came over to the sofa where I was sat and he grabbed me by the shoulders for me to stand and pushed me against the wall.”

The woman added English used enough force to lift her from the floor.

Prosecutor Danielle Docherty asked how English seemed at the time. The woman said: “Angry.”

The court heard the relationship continued and the woman discovered she was pregnant.

In one incident English grabbed his victim by the neck and pinned her against a door.

He later pressed his thumbs into her eyebrows which caused redness.

Other violent incidents included pulling the woman by the hair which caused her to lose her balance, and on another occasion, slapped her on the face causing redness.

The trial was also told English sent threatening and abusive messages to her.

Victim ‘credible and reliable’

Calum Weir, defending, told the court in his closing remarks that the Crown’s case “fell short” of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

In relation to the violence and injuries, Weir said: “There was no evidence in terms of pictures for someone who described herself as online.”

Weir stated that the victim was also “vague” with dates and there was “no specific time” given for each allegation.

He added: “There is no evidence or pictures – it simply did not happen.”

It was revealed English has previous convictions for mainly road traffic matters.

Convicting English, Sheriff David Hall told the court: “I considered the victim to be credible and reliable.

“I am satisfied that it is appropriate to convict of parts of the charge.

“There was a lot of evidence that this relationship was on-off between them.”

Sentence was deferred pending background reports until next month and English’s bail was continued meantime.

BBC News

Antony Caton avoided prison the first time after smearing poo in a police cell and on a hospital bed.

A racist brute who avoided prison after smearing poo in a police cell and on a hospital bed is finally behind bars.

Antony Caton, 57, found himself back in court after racially abusing a number of people including shop security staff and a police officer. It was not the first time he committed that type of offence, and was last in the dock last year after subjecting staff at a private hire firm to threats and racist abuse. He went onto commit a dirty protest while in his cell at a police station and a bed at Leeds General Hospital when he was taken there after claiming to be ill.

In August last year, he was made the subject of a suspended sentence order, and fell to be sentenced on Tuesday, August 18 for breaching it. Prosecutor Mia Nath told Leeds Crown Court: “On the 17th of December, the defendant entered Morrison’s in Rothwell. A man was working there as a security guard and asked him to leave, telling him he was banned. He returned and was again asked to leave.

“He responded with a tirade of racist abuse.”

The court heard Caton, of Main Street, Carlton, Wakefield, called the staff member a “suicide bomber” and told him to go back to his own country. He also said: “I’m going to kill them all” and “All p**** should be put in a box and burnt alive, that’s what we used to do in the old days.”

It was said CCTV footage showed the incident spilling out into the street, where two women witnessed what was happening. Ms Nath said: “They had already been caused harm by the defendant in the days prior and their employer made changes to the opening hours to protect their safety.”

On Christmas Day, an officer went to arrest Caton in relation to allegations made by staff at a store that he was “loitering outside.”

Caton asked the officer if he was Polish, and when he confirmed he was, he said: “If I was you I’d shut your stupid f****** Polish mouth.” He also asked the officer if he had visited “Polish concentration camps” and said: “You come here taking our money and sending it back to Poland” and “I hope Putin blows you up and I hope they invade your country and wipe you out. You deserve to be killed.”

During his arrest, Caton was found to be in possession of cannabis. He was later arrested for stealing from a shop in Leeds. Caton was jailed for 12 months.
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