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criminal damage

Ex-soldier’s anti-Muslim rants on Facebook

By
July 18, 2013
criminal damage, EDL, English Defence League, Racial Conviction

EDL supporter Kenneth Holden posted anti-Muslim messages on Facebook.

EDL supporter Kenneth Holden posted anti-Muslim messages on Facebook.


A SOUTH Tyneside ex-soldier used his Facebook page to make racist comments about Muslims.

Kenneth Holden wrote the anti-Islamic messages after he started supporting the far-right English Defence League (EDL).

The 30-year-old was arrested after police were alerted to the abusive comments that were written on his personal page.

Holden, of Winskell Road, South Shields, pleaded guilty to two counts of sending an offensive message by a public communication network at South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court last week.

Magistrates adjourned the case until yesterday for the probation service to write a report about him.

The report recommended that Holden be placed under the supervision of probation so his attitudes towards Muslims could be looked at.

Kevin Smallcombe, defending, asked the magistrates to go along with the report’s recommendation.

Holden was given a 12-month community order with supervision.

Jeanette Smith, prosecuting, told the court that the messages were brought to the police’s attention on April 21.

She said: “After receiving the report, officers searched Facebook, found the defendant’s page and saw the religiously abusive comments.

“He was arrested, and asked the police if it was because he didn’t like Muslims.

“In a second police interview, he posted the comments on his page and accepted that they could be seen as offensive to Muslims.”

At the first hearing, Mr Smallcombe said: “He was in the Army, and has some fairly strong views about Muslims.

“He supports some of the beliefs of the English Defence League and believes that the group was started after some Muslims spat on soldiers who were returning from Afghanistan.

“The comments on Facebook were of a religious nature.

“Some people say it is part of free speech, but by his guilty plea Mr Holden accepts he crossed the line.

“Most of our country has fair and tolerant views but some are extremists, on both sides of this argument.”

Holden was also sentenced for a separate criminal damage charge relating to his grandfather’s home.

The case goes back to June 28 when police found him in the house while his grandfather was in hospital.

He had broken into the home through the back door.

Holden was ordered to pay £60 compensation to his grandfather and £160 court costs for both cases.


Jarrow and Hebburn Gazette

Man sentenced to 12 weeks imprisonment for his part in disturbance during EDL/UAF protests

By
July 18, 2013
criminal damage, EDL, English Defence League, Jailed, Public order offence

A man has been sentenced to 12 weeks imprisonment for his part in the disturbance which occurred during the English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism protests in the city centre.

Ryan Herbert (06/04/87) of Bland Road, New Parks, pleaded guilty at Leicester Magistrates Court last month to criminal damage to property and to a Section 4 public order offence. He was sentenced last week.

The incident happened on October 9, 2010, in Humberstone Gate East when damage was caused to windows at Fabrika Bar at the Arts Centre.

In Leicester

Outrage as lout who flouts sentence still avoids prison

By
July 18, 2013
criminal damage, Racial Conviction, racially aggravated assault, Suspended sentence

A taxi driver has hit out at a thug who used a legal loophole to avoid jail after subjecting him to a violent assault.

Shaun Burns, 19, of Mayfield Avenue, Ingol, was found guilty of racially aggravated assault and criminal damage to the taxi during the period of a previous three months sentence, suspended for a year, imposed in May 2011 for affray.

But a shameful legal loophole has seen him walk out of court a free man,.

His suspended jail term had originally been imposed by Crown court, meaning magistrates, who found him guilty of the attack in March, had to commit his sentencing to the crown court.

Burns then appealed the verdict, leading to a further delay in sentence. He then abandoned the appeal.

By the day of Burn’s sentencing on Thursday – four months after his case was committed – the period of his suspended sentence had expired and Judge Ian Leeming QC, sitting at Preston’s Sessions House, ruled it would be ‘unjust’ to activate the order.

Instead Burns walked out of court with another suspended term, this time for 16 weeks suspended for a year, with 100 hours unpaid work, £350 costs and £520 compensation.

Earlier this year father–of-five Muhammed Hussain, from Holme Slack, Preston, told how he feared for his life after Burns, his partner Bryanne-Serrita Langham, 22, and friend Callum Tennant, 20, launched a racist attack on him before threatening to “take him down a side street and kill him”.

During the terrifying incident last December his attackers even threatened to cut off the Miller’s taxi driver’s beard.

Today a Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said: “Shaun Burns was found guilty after trial on March 22, 2012 at Preston Magistrates Court of racially aggravated common assault and criminal damage.

“The magistrates decided they had insufficient sentencing powers for these particular offences and committed the case to Preston Crown Court for sentence. The CPS was advised that Mr Burns was to exercise his right to appeal this conviction and therefore the Crown Court took the case out of the listing pending the outcome of the appeal.

“The appeal was subsequently abandoned by the defence and the case was relisted for sentence at Preston Crown Court on July 19.”

Tennant, of Marshall Grove, Ingol, was found guilty of racially aggravated assault and criminal damage to the taxi, which was kicked and dented when Mr Hussain pulled over to let them out at Lane Ends pub in Ashton.

He was given a community order, five month curfew and 200 hours unpaid work and ordered to pay £130 compensation and £50 costs in March.

Langham, 22, of Sylvancroft, Ingol, pleaded guilty to criminal damage to a taxi and making off without paying the £4.50 fare and was ordered to pay £84.50 compensation, a £100 fine, a £15 victim surcharge and £40 costs.

Mr Hussain, 36, had picked up the group from Marshall Grove on December 28, last year.

Lancashire Evening Post