A man has been convicted of racially abusing a Rochdale taxi driver after the New Zealand mosque shootings.

Sean Allen, 33, has been ordered to pay £100 compensation to his victim plus £320 in court costs, and to serve a community order with a six-week curfew.

Police were called to Queensway on 17 March to claims the driver’s passengers referred to the Christchurch attacks while abusing and threatening him.

The case against Natalie Rudman was dismissed by Manchester magistrates.

Both had denied the offence at a previous hearing.

Like Allen, Ms Rudman, 34 and from Heywood, had been charged with racially or religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm, or distress.

Allen, of Collyhurst, must also pay an £85 victim surcharge.

The Rochdale incident took place two days after 50 people were killed in two mosque attacks.

BBC News

A pensioner who told a black woman “when Brexit comes you will be gone” during an outburst in a betting shop has been fined £600.

John Keogh, 74, appeared at Croydon Magistrates’ Court and admitted committing a racially aggravated offence on August 30 2018.

In addition to the fine, he was handed a 12-month community order and told to pay costs and compensation to his victim.

John Keogh was fined £600 after telling Anneka Davis ‘when Brexit comes you will be gone’

Keogh lashed out at Anneka Davis while she was working at the Coral bookmakers in Peckham, south London, last year.

Prosecutor Jacqui Hughes said he told Davis she would be “gone” after becoming impatient while he waited for a £200 betting win to be handed over.

Hughes said: “Keogh came into the bookmakers to claim some winnings.

“He became impatient and when he was given the money, he told her, ‘When Brexit comes you will be gone’.

“She asked him what he meant by that and asked him to leave.”

Keogh also admitted calling Davis a “fucking n*****” as he left the shop, clenching his fists as he approached her at the door and causing her to “fear for her safety”.

Davis attended court to give evidence and said she was unable to work for five days after the incident because of stress.

Keogh leaving Croydon Magistrates Court on Monday

She said: “Due to the comments made by the man in question, I questioned whether I was welcome in this country as a black person.

“Due to the climate and everything that is going on with Brexit, I felt that I was questioning myself and whether I belonged.

“I was born in this country and I have lived here all my life. I can’t help that I was born black.”

Tariq Al-Mallak, defending, said there was “no explanation that could justify that behaviour” before telling the court Keogh suffers from PTSD following a car accident.

Chairman of the bench Douglas Hunter handed Keogh a community order lasting 12 months, in addition to a 10-week nightly curfew.

Hunter said: “People should be able to go to their place of work without fear of being abused in any way.

“It has had an impact on this young lady far beyond just that incident.”

Keogh was also ordered to pay £250 in compensation to Davis, costs of £350 and was banned from the Coral shop for one year.

The 74-year-old glared at Davis in the public gallery as he left court.

Keogh, of Lindsey Street, Bermondsey, admitted one count of racially aggravated public disorder.

Huff Post

A Belfast man who phoned a Muslim to say he was going to be killed in the wake of the New Zealand terrorist massacre has been jailed for four months.

Billy Dean, 50, was told he had committed an “appalling” offence by contacting the victim in England a day after the shootings at two mosques which claimed the lives of 51 people.

Dean, of Ebor Street in the city, was convicted of improper use of communications to cause anxiety.

Belfast Magistrates’ Court heard he made the call on March 16 this year after obtaining the victim’s number on a Facebook page for a mosque in Birmingham.

Prosecutors said he phoned the man and stated: “You will die today you stupid Muslim, you will be killed.”

West Midlands Police were alerted and traced the number to Dean.

When officers went to the defendant’s home days later and made a call to that number his phone started to ring.

Dean was arrested and claimed he did not remember anything about the incident because he had been drinking, the court heard.

He told police that he had been agitated for the previous couple of weeks.

A Crown lawyer confirmed that the victim is attached to a mosque in Birmingham.

“This phone call was made the day after the incident in New Zealand; the injured party reported that they were concerned for their family,” she said.

On March 15 this year a gunman opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch in a rampage live-streamed on Facebook.

Another 49 people were wounded in the attacks.

Dean’s barrister stressed he was at home in Belfast when he made the call and had not attempted to conceal his own number.

“He accepts that he does have anger management problems and that if somebody doesn’t agree with his views he can, to put it bluntly, fly off the handle,” counsel said.

“He accepts that he made this phone call because of what he saw on television in New Zealand at the time.”

Highlighting the context of Dean’s actions, District Judge Fiona Bagnall said: “The timing of it aggravates it even further from just the content, which is appalling in itself.

“There will be four months immediate custody.”

Dean was then released on bail pending an appeal against the prison term imposed.

Belfast Telegraph

Ewan Corbett admitted assaulting two stewards at a Blackburn Rovers match

A fan who assaulted two stewards at a football match has been sentenced to 23 weeks in a young offenders institution.

Ewan Corbett, 20, punched one steward and pushed another one over at a match between Blackburn Rovers and Middlesbrough in February, police said.

Security staff were attempting to remove a supporter from Ewood Park’s away end when Corbett attacked them.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of assault at Preston Magistrates Court on 17 June.

Corbett, of Albermarie Drive, Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire, was also given an eight-year football banning order.

PC Dan Fish said: “Corbett’s actions against two stewards just doing their jobs were shocking and disgraceful.

“This kind of behaviour cannot be tolerated and this kind of sentence shows the seriousness of behaving in this manner.”

BBC News

Goddard, who now has nine criminal convictions, has been fined and slapped with a restraining order after shouting and grabbing at the camera of a journalist covering a city centre demo for the M.E.N

‘Yellow vest’ protester James Goddard has been found guilty of assaulting a photographer as he covered a demo in Manchester city centre for the M.E.N.

Goddard, 29, grabbed at Joel Goodman’s camera as he took pictures and recorded video of the protest in Piccadilly Gardens in February.

He denied attacking him and defended himself in what was a heated trial attended by a number of his supporters, several of whom were removed from the courtroom at Manchester Magistrates’ Court.

However a judge this afternoon ruled his actions were unlawful and convicted him of common assault.

He was fined £300 and ordered to pay £500 in prosecution costs and £50 compensation to his victim.

A two-year restraining order was also put in place which prevents the defendant from approaching Mr Goodman.

He was found not guilty of a public order offence of using threatening words or behaviour to cause his victim to fear “immediate” violence after he told his victim he would “take his head off his shoulders.”

He told the court his words were a “common English idiom.” Judge Mark Hadfield said as the threat of violence was not “immediate”, the offence was not made out.

Before entering court a video of Goddard was uploaded onto Twitter of him saying he hoped the “got the right judge” and that he “got the right result”.

The court heard Goddard has nine previous convictions, including theft from an employer and failing to surrender in April 2010 and a racially aggravated public order offence in February 2011.

He told the court he now works as a “content creator” and is an “independent journalist”.

Police were earlier called into court after Mr Goddard surreptitiously held up a piece of paper with the words, “Pussy coward leftist soy boy” written on it as Mr Goodman entered the witness box.

Proceedings were temporarily halted whilst police officers, who were harangued by Mr Goddard’s supporters labelling them ‘jobsworths’, seized the piece of paper.

District Judge Hadfield warned that could have been treated as contempt of court but allowed it to “lie on the slate” and continue the trial after Mr Goodman ensured him he was happy to continue and be cross-examined by Goddard, who defended himself.

In video footage of the incident on Saturday February 9 this year from a Mr Goodman’s body-worn camera, Goddard lunges at Mr Goodman, twice trying to grab his camera as his victim backs away shouting: “Don’t you dare touch my lense!”

About 20 minutes later Mr Goodman told the court Goddard approached him again.

Goddard is filmed saying: “When there’s no police around here I’m going to take your head off your shoulders.

“Next time you are in London, you are finished, all the football lads know you. Next time you are down, see what happens.”

Mr Goodman told the court he took that to mean Goddard would “assault me in the future” and that is “scared me a bit.”

Using a megaphone and surrounded by yellow vest supporters, Goddard is then recorded referring to “Joel” and saying: “Your card is marked.”

Around 20 minutes later there is a third encounter where the two arguing about freedom of speech but this ends in a handshake.

Goddard was arrested five days after the incident at his home address on Kelvindale Drive, Timperley, Trafford.

He made no comment in his police interview but later claimed self-defence.

In court he He described his prosecution as a “witch hunt” and claimed he was being persecuted because Greater Manchester Police “fear the rise of the yellow vests.”

He said he had pushed Mr Goodman’s camera as he believed the pictures would be “given to organisations that tried to do me serious harm”.

He said: “I’m not proud of what I said. It’s a common English idiom. I wanted him out of my personal space.”

He added he had released a video “to my 15,000 followers” apologising for the comments to Mr Goodman.

Manchester Evening News

An East Lothian far right fanatic who downloaded terror manuals on how to make bombs and how to murder people has been jailed.

David Dudgeon collected digital instruction booklets – including the Anarchist Cook Book – describing how to create explosives and how to target major organs in the human body with knives.

Dudgeon, 43, also possessed extreme right wing material on the Holocaust denial conspiracy, anti-semitism, ISIS beheading videos and information on former EDL founder Tommy Robinson.

Among the disturbing collection of right wing material Dudgeon had stored on a hard drive included texts such as Bloody Brazilian Knife Fighting, Prison Killing Techniques and Krav Maga Knife Attacks.

The manuals and videos showed techniques on how to smuggle bombs on planes, the manufacture of black powder explosives and the use of biological weapons.

Dudgeon, from Prestonpans, was caught out with the violent collection when police were contacted by his psychiatrist who had concerns following a conversation between the pair in March this year.

Officers attended at his home with a search warrant there days later and confiscated computer equipment which contained the illegal material.

Dudgeon admitted a charge under the Terrorism Act 2000 when he appeared from custody at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Tuesday.

Fiscal depute Emma Mitchell told the court unemployed Dudgeon had prescribed anti-psychotic medication at the time of the offending and he had a history of paranoia.

Ms Mitchell said concerns were raised during a consultation between Dudgeon and his psychiatrist on March 26 this year.

The fiscal said the medic believed there were “concerns he posed a threat to public safety” and the police were called in to investigate.

Following a systematic search of his home police discovered a copy of the Anarchist Cook Book hidden away within a file on a hard drive.

Further examination of the equipment showed Dudgeon had also collected scores of other far right violent material including titles Knife Fighting Techniques From Folsom Prison, Russian Knife Combat and Knife, Blade, Bludgeon and Bomb.

The fiscal added Dudgeon’s internet history showed he had visited websites of “an extreme right wing nature” including Christian fundamentalism, ISIS murder videos and sites about Tommy Robinson.

The terror instruction manuals included instructions on how to manufacture explosives, create biological weapons and how to inflict fatal and non-fatal blows using a knife.

Solicitor Paul Haran, defending, said his client had been “off his medication” at the time but was now considered to be stable.

Mr Haran said most of the material was only viewed once with most viewings in July 2015.

Sheriff Michael O’Grady QC deferred sentence to next month for reports and remanded Dudgeon in custody.

Dudgeon pleaded guilty to possessing material useful to committing or preparing an act of terrorism namely a quantity of texts, manuals, booklets, leaflets, video files relating to the production of chemical and biological weapons and techniques for knife fighting.

He also admitted possessing electronic copies of various terror-related documents at his home address between March 6, 2013 and March 29 this year.

Edinburgh News

A court heard how Alexander Agnew’s messages left Sarwar fearing for his own safety and that of his family

Alexander Agnew narrowly escaped jail after targeting Labour MSP Anas Sarwar in a sickening hate campaign

A twisted racist who sent a series of vile email messages to Labour MSP Anas Sarwar in a sickening hate campaign narrowly escaped jail yesterday.

Alexander Agnew, 53, said in one message: ­“Scotland shall never accept a brown skinned heretic as anything but a rapist culture and a sin against God.”

Another said: “Keep a close eye on your offices,” and added a fire emoji.

Another email said the “Moslem horde was fought” and ended “NOT ONE STEP BACK, Alexander”.

The emails also included a video from far right terror group Nation Action. One was headed: “GET OUT”.

The emails left Sarwar, whose father Mohammad was the UK’s first Muslim MP, fearing for his own safety and that of his family.

Glasgow Sheriff Court heard that Agnew, of Govan, Glasgow, sent eight threatening emails to the former Scottish Labour leadership contender between February 5 and February 24 last year.

At an earlier hearing, he admitted sending racially aggravated abusive messages.

At sentencing yesterday, Campbell Porter, defending, said Agnew had carried out his campaign after drinking alcohol.

Agnew said he could not remember sending most of the emails, including the one with the video attached because of drink.

Sheriff Lindsay Wood called the offences “utterly ­unacceptable” and “aimed at a man doing a good job in public service”.

He said: “These offences are jailable but I am persuaded they can be dealt with in an alternative way.”

The sheriff ordered Agnew to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work, placed him on a 12-month supervision order and imposed a night-time curfew for eight months.

The sheriff warned Agnew: “If you breach that you’ll be back in front of me in two minutes.”

Sarwar, chairman of the Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group on Tackling ­Islamophobia, said: “While it has been a very difficult time for me and my family, it has strengthened my resolve to keep fighting for those who aren’t as ­fortunate as I am to have a voice.

“I want to thank the police and courts for their action and hope it ­encourages victims to report instances of ­anti-Muslim hatred.

“I remain increasingly confident that by working together we can build a Scotland that is free of prejudice and hate.”

Daily Record

Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski, left, and Michal Szewczuk were members of British neo-Nazi group Sonnenkrieg Division which was exposed by the BBC

Two teenage neo-Nazis, who encouraged an attack on Prince Harry for marrying a woman of mixed race, have been jailed for terrorism offences.

Michal Szewczuk, 19, from Leeds, and Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski, 18, from west London, were part of a group called the Sonnenkrieg Division.

An Old Bailey judge said their online propaganda was abhorrent and criminal.

Dunn-Koczorowski was given an 18-month detention and training order. Szewczuk was jailed for just over four years.

The defendants, who appeared by video link from HMP Belmarsh, in south-east London, did not react.

The court heard the teenagers used pseudonyms to run personal accounts on the Gab social media site, as well as sharing control of the Sonnenkrieg Division’s own page, on which they posted self-designed propaganda that encouraged terrorist attacks.

Among other things, the imagery suggested the Duke of Sussex was a “race traitor” who should be shot, glorified the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, and said white women who date non-white men should be hung.

The material was “uniformly violent and threatening” and “the nature of the violence includes rape and execution”, judge Rebecca Poulet said.

Suggested targets included non-white and Jewish people, and the effect was to overtly encourage lone acts of violence against members of the public, the judge added.

She said the men had promoted both Sonnenkrieg and the American Atomwaffen Division, which were extreme right-wing groups inspired by a book called Siege written by the veteran American neo-Nazi James Mason in the 1980s.


‘Intent on action’

Their ideology is violently racist and anti-Semitic neo-Nazism and its tactics involve political violence through acting alone or small-cell terrorism, she added.

She condemned an “additional feature” of the ideology by referencing a blog run by Szewczuk that encouraged the rape of female adults and babies.

Sonnenkrieg’s activities were exposed last year by a BBC investigation.

Prosecutor Naomi Parsons, opening the case earlier in the hearing, told the court: “This isn’t a keyboard organisation. It is intent on action.”

She read from the group’s mission statement, which declared: “Will you rise up and take the chance or will you sit back and do nothing… Hail victory, and Heil Hitler!”

In April, Szewczuk admitted two counts of encouraging terrorism and five of possessing documents useful to a terrorist.

Dunn-Koczorowski pleaded guilty while still a youth in December to two counts of encouraging terrorism.

The court heard Sonnenkrieg was influenced by the US-based group Atomwaffen Division, which is linked to five murders, and Mason, whose writings “may well represent the most violent, revolutionary and potentially terroristic expression of right-wing extremism current today”.

Sonnenkrieg promoted the idea that people should completely “drop out” of society and engage in a “total attack” on the system, Ms Parsons told the court.

She said Szewczuk also maintained an “extremely violent and aggressively misogynistic” blog that encouraged the rape, torture and murder of women and babies.

“You must become a machine of terror,” Szewczuk had advised his readers.

In online comments, Dunn-Koczorowski suggested that decapitating babies would be acceptable to stop them becoming “leftist politicians” and proclaimed “terror is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death”.

The pair were arrested the morning after the BBC investigation was broadcast in December.

Detectives found Szewczuk – then a computer science student at the University of Portsmouth – in possession of bomb-making instructions, documents describing how to conduct Islamist terror attacks and a “white resistance” manual.

Hitler imagined as avatar of a god

By Daniel De Simone, BBC home affairs producer

Sonnenkrieg Division, which police say has the most radical ideology on the UK extreme right, is the latest neo-Nazi group to emerge following the proscription of National Action under anti-terror laws three years ago.

Created by a small number of people, Sonnenkrieg used the internet to exaggerate its size and capabilities, with members seeking direct action from those accessing its propaganda.

Terrorism and criminality were encouraged, as was the transgression of what it caricatured as slavish morality, with sexual violence and paedophilia both advocated.

Their bizarre supernatural belief system imagined Hitler to be an avatar of a god, lionised the Moors Murderer Ian Brady and cult leader Charles Manson, and blended violent Satanism, a berserk misogyny, and admiration for radical Islamism.

The aim? To undermine and collapse civilization, which the group deemed a necessary forerunner to the creation of a Nazi warrior society.

BBC News

Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski, left, and Michal Szewczuk were members of British neo-Nazi group Sonnenkrieg Division which was exposed by the BBC

Two teenage neo-Nazis, who encouraged an attack on Prince Harry for marrying a woman of mixed race, have been jailed for terrorism offences.

Michal Szewczuk, 19, from Leeds, and Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski, 18, from west London, were part of a group called the Sonnenkrieg Division.

An Old Bailey judge said their online propaganda was abhorrent and criminal.

Dunn-Koczorowski was given an 18-month Detention and Training Order. Szewczuk was jailed for just over four years.

The defendants, who appeared by video link from HMP Belmarsh, in south-east London, did not react.

The court heard the teenagers used pseudonyms to run personal accounts on the Gab social media site, as well as sharing control of the Sonnenkrieg Division’s own page, on which they posted self-designed propaganda that encouraged terrorist attacks.

Among other things, the imagery suggested the Duke of Sussex was a “race traitor” who should be shot, glorified the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, and said white women who date non-white men should be hung.

The material was “uniformly violent and threatening” and “the nature of the violence includes rape and execution”, judge Rebecca Poulet said.

Hitler imagined as avatar of a god

By Daniel De Simone, BBC home affairs producer

Sonnenkrieg Division, which police say has the most radical ideology on the UK extreme right, is the latest neo-Nazi group to emerge following the proscription of National Action under anti-terror laws three years ago.

Created by a small number of people, Sonnenkrieg used the internet to exaggerate its size and capabilities, with members seeking direct action from those accessing its propaganda.

Terrorism and criminality were encouraged, as was the transgression of what it caricatured as slavish morality, with sexual violence and paedophilia both advocated.

Their bizarre supernatural belief system imagined Hitler to be an avatar of a god, lionised the Moors Murderer Ian Brady and cult leader Charles Manson, and blended violent Satanism, a berserk misogyny, and admiration for radical Islamism.

The aim? To undermine and collapse civilization, which the group deemed a necessary forerunner to the creation of a Nazi warrior society.

The pair sentenced on Tuesday will have time to reflect whether this was all really such a good idea.

BBC News

A Sheffield gangster who stabbed a man 100 times with a bladed knuckleduster attacked his victim because he wanted his cash, it has been revealed.

Byron Naylor ‘tortured’ his 57-year-old victim by beating and stabbing him in a ‘vicious, evil act of violence’.

Byron Naylor

South Yorkshire Police revealed details of the attack last week after Naylor was jailed for 20 years for causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

He also received a 13 month sentence for possessing an offensive weapon.

Today, the force revealed that the motive for the attack was ‘financial gain’.

It has emerged that when Naylor was homeless last summer, a man – who went on to become his victim – offered him a place to stay.

Naylor left the property when he moved back into his family home, but during the time spent living with his victim he learned that the man was ‘due to come into a large amount of money’.

Detectives believe the motive for the attack was ‘financial gain’.

Naylor, 29, of Glenholme Road, Woodhouse, stabbed his victim more than 100 times in an attack which lasted a number of hours on October 18, last year.

His victim suffered 19 broken ribs, broken fingers, a broken elbow and a fractured eye socket as well as extensive bruising and swelling after he was punched, kicked and stamped on.

He continues to receive hospital treatment more than seven months on.

South Yorkshire Police said Naylor used to be a ‘prominent figure in Sheffield’s organised crime group scene’.

Sheffield Star