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Tag Archives: English Defence League

Nottingham pig’s head mosque race abuse men sentenced

By
July 18, 2013
EDL, English Defence League, Fined, Racial Conviction, Suspended sentence

Three men have been fined for placing a pig’s head near the site of a proposed mosque in Nottinghamshire.

Wayne Havercroft, 41, of Bestwood Village, was fined £585 by Nottingham magistrates for racially aggravated public order offences.

Nicholas Long, 22, of Arnold, and Robert Parnham, 20, of Clifton were fined £300 over the incident in West Bridgford in June.

The court heard “No mosque here, EDL Notts” was sprayed on the ground.

In July, Christopher Payne, 25 of Hucknall was given a six-week suspended sentence and fined £335 and given 100 hours of community service for the same offence.

Crown Prosecution Service spokesman Brian Gunn said: “This kind of targeted abuse based on the grounds of religion or race has no place in our community.”

Mr Gunn added: “The actions of this group were highly offensive and would obviously have caused significant distress to the community in West Bridgford had it not been discovered at an early stage.”

The court was told the men had been drunk at the time and had since said they were ashamed of their behaviour.

BBC News

Leeds meat cleaver crime spree man jailed

By
July 18, 2013
assault, Drugs, EDL, English Defence League, Jailed, possessing an offensive weapon, sex abuse
Grant

Grant

A violent thug used a meat cleaver to threaten victims during a six-week campaign of robbery and burglary to fund a £600-a-week drink and drug habit.

Daniel Grant, 22, was jailed indefinitely yesterday after a court heard he had a hatred of people not like him and he enjoyed carrying weapons because it made him feel “on top of the world”.

Grant committed eight robberies in Leeds between December and January this year, taking £3,000 worth of valuables from victims. Some were assaulted or threatened with a meat cleaver and other weapons.

Leeds Crown Court heard Grant holds openly racist views and is an active member of the English Defence League, a far-right protest group. After his arrest he claimed he carried weapons because other people were “needled-up” and may attack him because of his political views.

Judge Penelope Belcher jailed Grant indefinitely, saying he posed a significant risk of committing serious offences in the future. He must serve a minimum of four years in prison before he can apply to the parole board for release.

Grant, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to robbery, attempted robbery, burglary and possession of a bladed weapon.

He asked for 16 other offences to be taking into consideration, including seven robberies and five burglaries. Some of the offences were committed with the help of an accomplice.

Two of the offences included him targeting victim as they walked to work along a canal tow path near to Gotts Road, Armley. One man, who was told hand over his wallet, feared he would be attacked and left to bleed to death.

After his arrest Grant, who has previous convictions for assault and sex offences, told probation officers and a psychiatrist that he had a fascination with weapons and the power it gave him. He also said he had dreams about “torching” people and inflicting other injuries on them.

Jobless Grant said he committed the offences to fund his addiction to alcohol and cannabis. He was also a regular user of amphetamines, cocaine, ecstasy, cannabis and anabolic steroids, which fuelled his aggression.

He said he was full of hatred for people who were not like him, including members of his own family. A report stated that he had an “abnormal personality” and had no empathy for his victims.

Judge Belcher said Grant was a risk to the public because he showed no desire to change.

She told: “You have made it clear that the lifestyle that you were leading, involving drugs and significant amounts of alcohol, is a lifestyle you have every intention of leading on your release from custody.”

After the hearing, Det Con Dave McKean, of City and Holbeck CID, said: “Grant put his victims through terrifying ordeals, often at knifepoint, purely to get money. I hope the sentence he has received will serve as some source of comfort to those whose lives have been affected by his actions.”

Yorkshire Evening Post

English Defence League member found guilty of threatening Muslim taxi driver because of his religion

By
July 18, 2013
EDL, English Defence League, Jailed, Racial Conviction, religiously-aggravated offence

dickie

A MAN who claims to be a member of the English Defence League has been found guilty of threatening a Muslim taxi driver because of his religion, after “refusing” to attend court to mount a defence to the charge.

Charles Dickie, aged 23, was due to appear before magistrates in Northampton yesterday to stand trial over an incident in Daventry earlier this month, but he would not get into a prison van to transport him to the hearing, the court heard.

After hearing the case in his absence, chair of the bench, Mabel Lilley, found the case against Dickie proved, and said the magistrates were minded to impose a 20-week prison sentence when Dickie could be brought before the court.

Taxi driver Sultan Ahmed said he had worked in Daventry for the past three-and-a-half years. He said that on Friday, March 2, he had been waiting for a customer in Brook Street at about 4.30pm when he was approached by Dickie.

Speaking through an interpreter, he said: “He said we are here, all over this place, in this country, and you are not welcome here.”

Dickie then sang a song insulting both Islam and Mr Ahmed and uttered expletives, before moving in closer and pointing to his genitals.

Mr Ahmed said: “He looked very angry and aggressive. He looked as if he was about to fight with me.”

Giovanni D’Alessandro, prosecuting, said Dickie had told police officers when arrested: “I’m not racist. I don’t like Muslims.”

He also talked continuously about the EDL and made threats towards a planned mosque in Daventry, the court was told.

Magistrates heard Dickie, of Tennyson Road, in Daventry, was previously convicted of making racially-aggravated threats in 2007, and they were shown evidence from his Facebook site to support the prosecution case.

Sentencing, Mrs Lilley said: “We feel this was a particularly nasty incident directed towards Mr Ahmed.

“There was a certain amount of planning on Mr Dickie’s part. He deliberately insulted Mr Ahmed and used abusive and insulting words towards him.”

In a statement to the court, Mr Ahmed said he had been “deeply upset and hurt” by Dickie’s actions, adding: “I can’t understand why Mr Dickie felt the way he did, to voice such hatred.”

Magistrates revoked a community order previously imposed against Dickie for an assault in Blackpool in May last year and for failure to surrender to bail.

Mrs Lilley said she was minded to sentence Dickie to four weeks in prison for the assault and two weeks for the bail offence, along with the 20 weeks for the religiously-aggravated offence against Mr Ahmed.

However, sentencing was adjourned to a date yet to be set

Northampton Chronicle

Three in court over alleged racist graffiti

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

THREE people are to appear in court next month accused of spraying racially offensive remarks on three buildings, including a mosque.

It relates to alleged spray painting incidents at the Nasir Mosque, in Brougham Place, Hartlepool, and at the Albert Guest House, in Front Street, and the Milco store, in Front Street, both Shotton Colliery, County Durham, which all took place on Tuesday November 16 last year.

Anthony Donald Smith, 24, of Hampshire Place, Peterlee, and 31-year-old Steven James Vasey, of Prior’s Grange, High Pittington, both County Durham, plus 19-year-old Charlotte Davies, of Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, have been charged with racially aggravated criminal damage.

All three have been bailed by police to appear before North Durham magistrates, at Peterlee, on Wednesday May 11.

Durham Police said that at the time of the alleged incidents all three claimed to be members of the English Defence League.

The Northern Echo

HOPE not hate secure EDL conviction

By
July 18, 2013
assault, EDL, English Defence League, Jailed

EDL member Steven Crispin, fractures the jaw of a Muslim man (inset) Steve Crispin brandishes weapons
EDL member Steven Crispin, fractures the jaw of a Muslim man (inset) Steve Crispin brandishes weapons

This is the moment Steven Crispin, a 23-year old EDL member, fractured the jaw of a Muslim man during an un-policed English Defence League (EDL) march in Dagenham last year.

Two brothers, Mohammed and Aftab, were walking near their house in Dagenham when a group of EDL thugs, on an EDL march, attacked them. The two brothers had been unaware that they were walking towards an EDL march.

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard in July how the two brothers were punched and kicked to the ground and how passers by tried to intervene and help them.

We are proud to say that the passers by were HOPE not hate staff who had been photographing the EDL march and were recovering from being attacked themselves only moments before.

Their evidence in court, coupled with the photograph, was key to two men being convicted.

The EDL march was one of a series of demonstrations that the EDL and the smaller English Nationalist Alliance held last year in protest against an empty butcher’s shop being turned into an Islamic centre.

On one of the earlier protests a young EDL supporter was tragically killed. There had also been a violent EDL attack on a meeting of the UAF only a week before this march.

So it was somewhat of a surprise on the day of the march that there was absolutely no police presence in Redbridge at its start. Over 200 EDL supporters had began drinking early in the day at the Rendezvous Pub on Chadwell Heath High Road, after the pub’s landlord had obliged the EDL by opening at 10am. Despite becoming rowdy and spilling out onto the main road, the police made no intervention and only sent along one PCSO on a bicycle to escort the group the mile from Redbridge to the proposed site of the Muslim Centre in Dagenham, where there was a large police presence waiting.

After stopping traffic and abusing shoppers and horrified passers-by, EDL supporters then attacked the two HOPE not hate photographers after the march passed Chadwell Heath train station. The PCSO assigned to escort the EDL rode away from the incident despite pleas from our photographers for assistance.

The defence had claimed that the two brothers arrived on the scene in confrontational mood, though fortunately the jury were unconvinced.

Despite an assurance given by Scotland Yard’s press office that the attacks would be investigated as racially aggravated assault, no racial motive was tagged onto the charge. Crispin received just three months last Monday.

Hope not Hate

Byker EDL firework thug gets suspended sentence

By
July 18, 2013
assault, EDL, English Defence League, Suspended sentence

AN EDL thug who stormed a peaceful protest before hurling a lit firework has walked free from court

English Defence League member Anthony Crawford

English Defence League member Anthony Crawford

Anthony Crawford sparked pandemonium when he lobbed the explosive at anti-jubilee protesters as they gathered for a rally in Newcastle city centre.

It landed in the hood worn by Barnaby Drew, from Byker, Newcastle, who was left with burns after it exploded on his shoulder and set fire to his hair.

The 19-year-old’s pals patted down his body to stop it spreading, and the force of the blast burned a hole in his jumper. He was left partially deafened when the firework perforated his eardrum.

But now, after admitting one charge of assault by beating, Crawford, 22, of Elmway, Chester-le-Street, County Durham, has escaped a prison term after magistrates handed him a 15-week suspended sentence.

And they ordered Crawford to pay his victim £150 in compensation for the terrifying incident. Crawford joined a group of EDL protesters at the Rose & Crown pub, on Newcastle’s Newgate Street, for a pre-arranged meeting on June 4.

Later he sparked mayhem when he threw two bottles and the firecracker as trouble flared during scuffles in front of shoppers at Newcastle’s Grey’s Monument where the EDL and anti-jubilee protesters clashed.

Sue Baker, prosecuting, told Newcastle Magistrates’ Court: “He’s thrown two bottles of water at the protestors and then a firework which caused minor injuries to Barnaby Drew.”

Crawford’s legal team told the court he was handed the lit firework before throwing it into the crowd and he had not intended to cause injury.

Crawford, who works two days a week as a volunteer, admitted one charge of assault by beating and one count of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause fear or provoke unlawful violence.

He was handed two 15-week sentences to run concurrently, suspended for 12 months.

He was also ordered to carry out 100 hours’ unpaid work and was made the subject of a 12-month supervision order.

Chronicle Live

Racist chants by EDL in pub

By
July 18, 2013
EDL, English Defence League, possessing an offensive weapon

The first two English Defence League members charged after a town-centre demo have appeared in court.

Peter Craven, 28 and Michael Riley 23, both from Hull, each admitted stealing a pool ball and possessing an offensive weapon.

The men admitted they were in Halifax for the EDL protest that engulfed the town centre on April 16.

They were part of a 16-man group who left the main organisation and moved to the Beehive and Cross Keys pub in King Cross Street near Park ward – an area police were trying to shidled from EDL members.

In the pub, EDL members chanted racist songs, snapped pool cues and hunted through waste bins for bottles.

Police arrested the men outside the pub shortly after they left.

They will be sentenced at Bradford Crown Court July 19

Halifax Courier

Racist is jailed

By
July 18, 2013
Drugs, EDL, English Defence League, Jailed, Racial Conviction, religiously aggravated harassment
Darren Conway.

Darren Conway.

THE OFFENSIVE actions of a Gainsborough man were blasted by a judge as he was jailed for displaying inflammatory racist posters in the front window of his flat.

Darren J Conway covered the window of his Heaton Street flat with posters, literature and photographs which attacked the Prophet Mohammed and the Muslim religion.

When police searched the 44-year-old’s flat, they also found 16 cannabis plants growing under a heated lens in his bathroom.

He had previously been found guilty of the charges at Magistrates Court, and appeared at Lincoln Crown Court on Tuesday 6th March for sentencing.

Conway, a former BNP member and supporter of the English Defence League, attracted comments from passers-by and workers at nearby businesses with his offensive display.

Mr Lowe, prosecuting, described a number of the 17 posters and other such material displayed that were ‘undoubtedly offensive to members of the Muslim and Islamic faith’.

Among the slogans on show from his ground-floor window were ‘Jihad works both ways’, ‘no surrender’, ‘Muslims are the most hateful of them all’ and a letter confirming that he was a member of the BNP.

A passer-by reported Conway after being disturbed by the pictures of mutilated Muslims with graphic and obscene messages and imagery.

In Conway’s defence, the court heard how he had no history of racism and he was a carer for his ailing, elderly father who had suffered from multiple strokes.

Conway claimed that he put the posters and other literature in his window simply to attract the attention of the letting agent for his flat with whom he was in dispute, claiming that he had been left for months without electricity in three rooms and described the flat as uninhabitable with mould on the walls.

When sentencing Conway, Hon Judge Heath slammed his offensive behaviour.

“You put 17 offensive pieces and posters in the window of your ground-floor flat where they were there for all to see,” he said.

“To describe the material that you put in your window as grossly offensive would be an understatement, to Muslims and right-thinking members of the public.”

Judge Heath continued: “There is no place in a civilised society for conduct of that sort and the only sentence is an immediate custodial one.”

Conway was sentenced to three months for the production of cannabis and 12 month religiously aggravated harassment.

Dinnington Today

Child molester jailed after girl relives horror

By
July 18, 2013
EDL, English Defence League, paedophile, sex abuse

A teenage sex-abuse victim endured years of “inner torture” after she was persuaded to drop her allegations against her attacker, a Court heard.

Self-confessed child molester Michael Coates got sympathy for himself by falsely claiming that he too had been a victim of sexual abuse and the girl was pressured into not proceeding with her allegations against him.

It was only three years later when Coates was finally charged with a series of sex offences, including two attempted rapes, that he admitted his own sex-abuse story was a pack of lies.

Today the 23-year-old Bradford man was beginning a six-year jail sentence for the repeated abuse which he accepted had developed from “experimenting” as a ten-year-old boy into a habit.

Coates, now of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to a total of eight charges of indecent assault and two of attempted rape in relation to the first girl and a further four offences of indecent assault in relation to a second.

During yesterday’s hearing at Bradford Crown Court Coates’ barrister Jonathan Rose handed Judge Roger Scott a copy of a suicide note his client had written.

In it he described himself as a child molester and offered his apologies to the two girls for what he had done.

Jailing Coates, Judge Scott told him that he regarded him as a danger to children and highlighted the fact he had told a series of dramatic lies for his own purposes.

“That poor girl must have had a very, very long period of inner torture…she attempted to kill herself as I understand it,” he said.

He said it was a further aggravating feature of the case that Coates had used bribery through sweets, money and cigarettes in exchange for sexual favours.

In addition to the jail sentence, Coates will also have to register with the police as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Prosecutor John Hitchen told the court that the first girl had suffered flashbacks and nightmares after deciding to drop the proceedings in 1998, but she eventually challenged Coates about what he had done in the autumn of last year.

Coates was arrested in October and made admissions in relation to the allegations made by the two girls.

Mr Rose conceded that Coates’ offending had turned into a habit and he was unable to stop himself until he reached the age of 19 in 1997.

He pointed out that since then Coates had not committed any further offences of a sexual nature.

“This is a very young man about to start a sentence for offences against children and through the duration of that sentence he will have no one….it’s going to be a very lonely and a very difficult time,” said Mr Rose.

Telegraph & Argus

EDL leaders fined over rooftop protest

By
July 18, 2013
EDL, English Defence League, Fined
Kevin Carroll holds a banner on top of FIFA HQ in Zurich

Kevin Carroll holds a banner on top of FIFA HQ in Zurich

A ROOFTOP protest over the ban on the England football team having embroidered poppies on their shirts has cost two English Defence League members £3,000.

EDL leader Stephen Lennon and member Kevin Carroll flew to Switzerland last Tuesday and 24 hours later managed to get on to the roof of the FIFA headquarters in Zurich.

They were demanding England players be allowed to wear poppies on their shirts for their friendly against Spain after the governing body ruled emblems were not allowed because the poppy was seen as a political emblem.

The compromise of allowing the teams to wear black armbands with poppies on was reached after interventions from Prince William and David Cameron.

But Mr Lennon claims his protest was the tipping point.

“FIFA changed their mind after two hours of us being up on that roof,” he said. “Everyone’s saying it was David Cameron but it was us.”

The pair were arrested when they came down from the roof after four hours, and were fined £2,300 and had to pay £700 court costs.

“They said our reasons were just but obviously it was against the law,” said Mr Lennon. “They put us in a grimy prison for three days.”

Their spell behind bars meant the pair were not in London on Friday when 170 English Defence Members were arrested at a pub near the Cenotaph because police believed they were headed for the protest camp at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Mr Lennon said: “They dragged everyone out of the pub and held them for four hours. There was no trouble.

“The police said they were preventing a breach of the peace so they arrested everyone, men and women. But no-one was charged with anything, they were all just released after four hours.”

Luton Today

The Guardian