Archive

Tag Archives: mosque conviction

Three Essex men jailed after leaving raw pig heads outside Muslim buildings

By
September 19, 2025
Uncategorized

The judge said that their offending was designed to cause ‘serious distress’

A racist trio who dumped severed pig’s heads outside buildings used by people of Muslim faith have been jailed, reports The Express.

The series of Islamophobic hate crimes, which included sprawling graffiti on walls that read “no mosques”, took place in Rainham, east London, in July last year.

Harvey Wells, 21, Josh Campbell, 34, and James Desbois, 30, have now been jailed for more than seven years in total, after they “deliberately and strategically” targeted buildings which included those used by children.

Wells left the animal remains outside the Rainham Village Children’s Centre, the Royal Youth Community Centre and Harris Academy. He also sprayed graffiti on the walls of the premises on July 25 last year, Snaresbrook Crown Court was told.

The Rainham Village Children’s Centre had been running Islamic classes, while the Royal Youth Community and Harris Academy centre had been used for community prayers. Supt Simon Hutchison confirmed at the time the incidents were being “treated as Islamophobic hate crimes”.

Louise Oakley, prosecuting, said that in a “message of religious hostility”, raw pigs heads were “deliberately and strategically placed” alongside the graffiti. She added: “The Crown’s case is that the writing was deliberate and motivated by religious hostility.”

Wells, of Hutton, Essex, and Desbois, of Herongate, Essex, both admitted three counts of religiously aggravated damage to property. Campbell, of Hutton, Essex, denied the charges but was convicted of three counts of religiously aggravated damage to property.


Wells and Campbell were both jailed for 32 months, while Desbois was jailed for 25 months. Wells was seen on CCTV trying to hide his face as he got out of the car and took the pigs heads out of black bin liners before placing them outside the buildings.

Helen Harrow, the headmistress of the Rainham Village Primary School, which is attached to the children’s centre, said in an impact statement: “The school walkway was cleaned 23 times, but the graffiti still remains. It is a reminder of what happened.

“Nearly half of the children are Muslim, and I have Muslim staff. I am now constantly worried about going to school and seeing more graffiti on the windows.”

Sentencing the three men, Judge Gerard Pounder said: “These offences took place in the early hours of 25 July last year. The area that was targeted was an area called Rainham in the London borough of Havering.

“Typical of many areas in London, it is made up of diverse communities which strive hard to accommodate cultural differences. People work together to promote harmony and mutual respect.

“On that day the three of you decided to embark upon a series of three acts specifically intended to disrupt that harmony. I don’t know why you did it. There must have been substantial planning. These premises were not identifiable as mosques. There were no minarets or anything like that.

“The three pigs heads would have to been sourced, and would have to have been collected. You must have known that the next day people would attend the premises for prayers.”

He added: “This is a particularly nasty thing to do in another community. It is obvious that your offending was designed to cause serious distress.”

Essex Live

Man guilty of attacking mosque worshipper

By
September 2, 2025
Uncategorized

A man has pleaded guilty to attacking a member of a group of worshippers who were praying outside a mosque.

The victim was punched outside Portsmouth Jami Mosque at about 21:30 BST on Sunday, according to Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary.

Callum Mcinally, 29, pleaded guilty at Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court to assault by beating, and also faces charges of racially aggravated assault by beating, racial harassment and making threats with a blade.

The defendant, of Waverley Road in Southsea, is due to be sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court on 3 October.

Police said the small group of men, women and children suffered verbal abuse before the attacks.

“A man from the group asked the man to leave them alone, but was then reportedly punched in the chest,” police said in a statement., external

The suspect allegedly made threats with a knife before discarding the weapon, detectives added.

No-one was seriously injured and a knife has been seized by police.

BBC News

Muslim-hating decorator finds out he has half-Iraqi grandson

By
January 20, 2022
Uncategorized

The 51-year-old called for people to cook bacon over burning mosques

Paul Shelton, Buxton Road, Furness Vale, called for Islam to be made illegal

A Derbyshire painter and decorator posted “utterly vile” rants on social media where he said “we need to burn all mosques in our country” and “cook our bacon on the ashes”.

Derby Crown Court heard how Paul Shelton used an anonymous Facebook profile to spout his abhorrent views.

His sentencing hearing was told how like-minded people liked and shared his posts including one where he called Muslims “dirty, twisted, s***-stinking, paedos”.

And in what his own defence solicitor called “a beautiful and ironic silver lining” the 51-year-old has since found out he has a grandson who is half-Iraqi.

Jailing him for 20 months, Judge Shaun Smith QC said: “What you posted was utterly vile, grossly offensive and appalling.

“No right-thinking person would think this is anything other than abhorrent.

“The internet is a wonderful thing which has brought many benefits for all of our society.

“The problem, however, is that it is a medium which allows individual groups to peddle hate against sections of our society.

“Your views demonstrated hostility towards Muslims which does not allow me to accept the submission these were merely drunken rants.

“You posted anonymously and included you talking about an EDL (English Defence League) protest ‘outside Didsbury paedo cult hall’ in which you said people should “burn it down and cook our bacon on its ashes”.

“You called for Islam to be ‘completely outlawed in our country’ and said ‘we need to burn all mosques in our country.”

Jennifer Joseph, prosecuting, said police became aware of anti-Muslim postings made by a Facebook profile called “Pedro Smokey,” which following an investigation in late 2018, turned out to be Shelton.

She said messages were posted on an open public group called The Realist People Movement, the first of which read “we need to burn all mosques in our country, what say you?” which received messages of support from other online users.

Miss Joseph said a second message posted online referred to Muslims as being “dirty, twisted, s***-stinking, paedos” and used a racially offensive term toward Asian people.

She said: “(The prosecution) say it would not be right to suggest the messages are completely out of character and just a drunken mistake.

“He was interviewed and he was not particularly co-operative.

“He would not tell the police what his Facebook password was and when asked ‘are you Pedro Smokey?’ he replied ‘I can’t answer that question’.”

Shelton, of Buxton Road, Furness Vale, High Peak, Derbyshire, pleaded guilty to two counts of publishing material that would incite religious hatred.

He has no relevant previous convictions and nothing for 10 years.

Richard Orme, mitigating, said since being arrested his client has got back in contact with his estranged daughter who has an Iraqi partner who has a child by him.

He said: “It’s a beautiful and ironic silver lining that he adores his half-Iraqi grandson and, in his own words, spoils him rotten.

“There has been a lot of water under the bridge, this is three-and-a-half years old and he is a new man who now does not share those views.

“He bears no ill-will towards Muslims.”

As well as the jail sentence, Shelton was handed a five-year criminal behaviour order limiting his use of the internet and meaning he has to tell the police about passwords and social media accounts should they demand to know them.

Derby Telegraph

Ebbw Vale man jailed for threat to blow up mosque in Gwent

By
February 19, 2021
Uncategorized



AN EBBW Vale man has been jailed for six months after threatening to burn down a mosque and “blow up” council buildings.

Robert Armstrong, 45, called 999 on November 24 while walking along Steelworks Road, in Ebbw Vale.

Speaking to the police call handler, Armstrong threatened to kill council officers and members of the Muslim community, particularly those of Pakistani origin, as well as threatening to blow up the Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council offices and a mosque.

Armstrong told the operator: “I have had enough. I have had a gutsful of lockdown. My issues are with the government, the police, and the NHS.

“I am going to f*** up as many lives as I can. By the time I am finished the Muslim community in Wales will be p***** off because I will murder them.

“The council are my top target. You better get everyone out of that building because I will blow it up.”

Prosecuting, Lowri Wynn Morgan said Armstrong, of Station Road, Waunlwyd, told the call handler that if she sent officers to find him, he would “send your officers back in body bags.”

Officers were sent to stop the defendant as he walked along Steelworks Road, and he was arrested after being Tasered.

Stuart John, in mitigation for Armstrong, who was sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court on Wednesday, said the defendant had been suffering with his mental health, having recently moved GP surgeries and being unable to access his prescribed medicine.

Mr John added: “This has been his first taste of custody, and it has been an extremely sobering experience.”

Sentencing Armstrong, Judge Christopher Vosper said it was “not entirely clear what prompted” his “ranting and raving”.

He said: “You threatened to go to Blaenau Gwent council buildings and blow them up, and stab in the neck any council officer you could find.

“You also made threats against the Muslim community, particularly those of Pakistani origin. You threatened to kill them and destroy a mosque.

“The operator says she did not feel threatened and was unsure whether to take the threats seriously but felt she could not disregard them.”

However, Judge Vosper added: “No officer of the council or members of the Muslim community heard these threats being made. The victims never heard them and therefore never suffered any harm.”

He sentenced Armstrong to 26 weeks in prison for each of the offences, to be served concurrently.
South Wales Argus

Racist murderer and mosque bomber Pavlo Lapshyn found making explosives in cell at ‘Monster Mansion

By
August 7, 2020
Uncategorized

The chemical engineer claimed he was making fireworks at HMP Wakefield

A white supremacist who stabbed an elderly man to death and planted home-made bombs at mosques has admitted making an explosive substance in his cell at a maximum-security jail.

Self-radicalised extremist Pavlo Lapshyn, 32, a chemical engineer, used salt, copper wire, pencil and other substances to form an ingredient which could be used to cause an explosion.

When officers at the category A prison HMP Wakefield found a plate with a white substance on it in his cell in August 2018, he told them he was trying to make a firework.

HMP Wakefield is known as Monster Mansion due to the number of high-profile, high-risk sex offenders and murderers there.

Lapshyn, a Ukrainian national, had just started a work placement in the UK when he murdered 82-year-old Mohammed Saleem in Small Heath, Birmingham, by randomly stabbing the grandfather in the back with a hunting knife in 2013.

In the following months he planted bombs near mosques in the West Midlands, later stating his aim was to start a race war.

Since he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 40 years he has been assessed by psychiatrists and has an autism diagnosis along with “significant mental health problems”, Leeds Crown Court heard.

He pleaded guilty to making an explosive substance via a videolink from HMP Whitemoor, was heard singing at points during the hearing and declined to be present when Judge Tom Bayliss QC passed a two-year jail sentence.

Peter Hampton, prosecuting, said Lapshyn admitted to officers that he had been preparing chemicals during their routine search of his cell and they informed counter-terrorism specialists in the prison.

They knew of his background as a chemical engineering PhD student, his racially-motivated murder and explosives campaign, and “a long-standing interest in pyrotechnics”, Mr Hampton said.

The defendant told officers he was trying to produce potassium chloride. A smell of bleach could be detected in the cell.

A forensic expert who was called in determined Lapshyn had formed a viable explosive substance.

Attempts were made to interview the defendant about this, the court heard, but he was unable or unwilling to assist.

After moving to HMP Whitemoor, he wrote a chemical formula on his cell wall which he said was related to pyrotechnics.

Searches of his cell there found he was hiding substances including vinegar, artificial sweetener and salt.

Mr Hampton said of his offending at HMP Wakefield: “The defendant’s actions clearly caused the risk of explosion or fire within a category A prison, potentially to harm officers, other prisoners or Mr Lapshyn himself, and interferes with the general running of the prison.”

Judge Bayliss said it was right for the CPS to bring the prosecution but he would not pass a consecutive sentence as Lapshyn – whom he described as a “highly intelligent man” – was already serving a minimum term of 40 years.

He said: “He wouldn’t even be considered for release by the Parole Board until he is 65 and he is very unlikely ever to be released given his position.”

Manchester Evening Post

Mosque bomber Pavlo Lapshyn given life for murder

By
June 2, 2020
Uncategorized

A Ukrainian student has been jailed for at least 40 years for murdering an 82-year-old man and plotting explosions near mosques in racist attacks.

Pavlo Lapshyn stabbed Mohammed Saleem in Small Heath, Birmingham on 29 April, five days after arriving in the UK.

On Monday, Lapshyn, 25, admitted murder as well as plotting to cause explosions near mosques in Walsall, Tipton and Wolverhampton in June and July.

At the Old Bailey, he was told he would be jailed for life.

Mr Saleem was stabbed to death, just yards from his home, after attending prayers at his local mosque in Green Lane.

Lapshyn, from Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine, was living in Birmingham while on a temporary work placement in the city when he killed Mr Saleem, a grandfather of 22.

He later planted three bombs near mosques in the West Midlands as part of a campaign he said was motivated by racial hatred.

He was arrested almost a week after an explosion in Tipton.

‘Hated non-whites’

The third device, which exploded near the Kanzul Iman mosque in Tipton on 12 July, was packed with nails.

Police said it was only because Lapshyn got the wrong time for Friday prayers that the blast did not cause mass injuries.

Sentencing, Mr Justice Sweeney told him: “You clearly hold extremist right-wing, white supremacist views and you were motivated to commit the offences by religious and racial hatred in the hope that you would ignite racial conflict and cause Muslims to leave the area where you were living.

“Such views, hatred and motivations have no place whatsoever in our multi-faith and multi-cultural society.”

He added Lapshyn held “views abhorrent to all right-thinking people which have no place in our multi-cultural society”.

During interviews, Lapshyn told police he had murdered the grandfather of 22 because he hated “non-whites”.

Prosecutor Peter Wright QC told the Old Bailey that PhD student Lapshyn had come to the UK on a work placement with software company Delcam.

The firm’s sponsorship programme in partnership with the National Metallurgy Academy in Ukraine is now under review following his crimes.

Lapshyn’s apartment, above Delcam’s offices in Birmingham, were raided by police who found chemicals and bomb-making equipment for another three devices.
‘White power’

They also discovered a camera containing 455 photographs and 98 videos. Some of them showed Lapshyn detonating homemade bombs in the Ukrainian countryside. The camera also included shots of him making bombs.

The force’s anti-terrorism unit also discovered apparent anonymous notes in the apartment which he planned to use to taunt police.

One featured a photograph of the hunting knife, next to which Lapshyn had written “Mohammed Saleem was killed by”.

He also referred to a police reward for information, saying “£10,000 small price, maybe £1m”, followed by a smiley face, and the phrase “white power”.

The court heard Lapshyn had a video game on his laptop called Ethnic Cleansing and also posed for white a supremacist website with the knife.

Defending, Richard Atkins QC said “we accept that his crimes are grave” and “the appropriate penalty we submit is life with a substantial minimum term”.

Mr Atkins told the court that Lapshyn is being kept in segregation and that the only person he speaks to regularly is his father.

In an interview with the BBC, Lapshyn’s father, Sergey Lapshyn, said he did not believe his son was a racist.

“Among his acquaintances were people of different ethnic backgrounds, and I have never seen that (racism),” he said.

He added his son could be “a bit tight-lipped” but was not calculating, as police had described him.

Speaking from his home in Dnepropetrovsk, Lapshyn’s father confirmed his own mother was a Muslim during her childhood.

Lapshyn’s father said his son knew his grandmother was a member of the (largely Muslim) Tatar community at the time of the former Soviet Union.

“We never discussed religious problems and we always considered them to be very intimate,” he said.
‘Can’t move forward’

Mr Saleem’s family said their father had not done anything to deserve to die, other than be a Muslim.

In a statement read out in court, Mr Saleem’s daughter Shazia Khan said: “The shock and sadness of the reality is impossible to accept, yet alone accept and move on.

“We can’t move forward, the murder has disabled our minds in every emotional way possible.”

Speaking after the sentencing, Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale from West Midlands Police said Lapshyn was “very definitely driven by an extreme right-wing ideology and white supremacist ideology”.

Asked to describe Lapshyn’s manner in police interview, he said: “He was matter-of-fact, he was cold, he was callous.

“I do not think he has shown any remorse or regret for the crimes that have taken place.”

BBC News

From 2013

Racist jailed for arson attack on mosque

By
June 2, 2020
Uncategorized

RACIST firebomber Mark Bulman has been jailed for five years after trying to torch the Broad Street mosque.

The 22-year-old used a British National Party leaflet as a fuse in a petrol-filled beer bottle which he hurled through a window at the place of worship.

But the Molotov cocktail failed to ignite so the self-confessed bigot handed himself in to the police saying that they would find his fingerprints on it.

And as well as trying to burn the mosque to ash and rubble’ Bulman also daubed racist graffiti on the walls.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court that police received a call shortly before 1am on Thursday, August 17 from the defendant.

After he told them what he had done an officer went to the scene and found him near Fleming Way.

The racist was armed with a chair leg which he said he needed to protect himself from the enemy’.

He referred to the Broad Street area as enemy territory’ because it had businesses owned by people from ethnic minorities.

Bulman also daubed swastikas on the outside of the mosque as well as other racist messages on a wall in Turl Street.

In a rambling interview Bulman told police of his dislike for anyone apart from white British people.

When his house was searched, officers found a variety of racist material and he admitted being a BNP sympathiser and had been on their rallies in the past.

Bulman, of Montrose Close, Moredon, admitted arson, attempted arson and two counts of religiously aggravated criminal damage.

Philip Warren, defending, said “On any view of it, it is a horrible and serious business.

“It is highly offensive, deliberately offensive, and the offence and outrage caused must have been massive.”

He said his client had told the psychiatrist that he wanted to reduce the mosque to “ash and rubble” and “to give the establishment and lefties a wake up call.”

But Mr Warren said: “This was by any standards an amateur and inept act not a concerted attempt to burn the building.”

Having spent 140 days in prison on remand he said that his client, who had no previous convictions, had time to reflect on his “skewed views” of society and wanted to change.

From now on he said that he sought to use the pen rather than the sword to get his opinions across and Mr Warren said Bulman wished to address the court.

But Judge Douglas Field refused to allow it saying: “I am not going to allow a political speech.”

“There has to be a deterrent element to my sentence to deter stupid people like you.

“You are a racial bigot. It was your wish and intention to burn that building to the ground. We have mixed races in Swindon and it is extremely important that we all get on together.”

Swindon Advertiser

From 2007

Shifnal racist attacked woman and made threats to kill another

By
October 25, 2019
Uncategorized

A racist who attacked a woman and made threats to kill another and to stab a third has also admitted he threatened to damage a mosque.

Declan Moorhouse, 21, is due to be sentenced for offences including common assault, harassing a woman and a man, and sending a message threatening to kill another woman.

He is also awaiting sentence for threatening to start fires on two other occasions, once to a house and on a later date to vehicles.

All of those offences happened between September and November last year.

At Shrewsbury Crown Court yesterday Moorhouse changed his plea on another matter of threatening to damage Telford Central Mosque to guilty.

He made that threat to a probation officer in a meeting on April 8.

Judge Anthony Lowe said that Moorhouse’s crimes were linked to “different behavioural traits” including racist ideas and issues around the breakdown of a relationship.

Judge Lowe adjourned the case to November 29, so that a psychiatric report on Moorhouse can be updated before he is sentenced.

Moorhouse’s representative Rob Edwards conceded that the threshold for a jail sentence had been crossed, but said that if Moorhouse went to prison he would be unlikely to address properly his mental health and behavioural issues and the chances of “breaking the cycle of offending” would be lower.

Moorhouse will be sentenced for 10 offences in all, including the threat to the mosque in April, and the five crimes from October last year including harassment, making threats and damaging a wall.

Another three relate to his threat to and assault of a woman on September 14 last year, and the final offence of threatening to burn vehicles relates to November 1.

Moorhouse, of Lovell Close, Shifnal, remains in custody.

Shropshire Star

Belfast man who threatened to kill Muslim after New Zealand terror attack given four month jail sentence

By
June 28, 2019
Uncategorized

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

Fulwood man admits he wrote racist graffiti on Masjid E Salaam Mosque

By
April 23, 2019
Uncategorized

A man has admitted he was responsible for racist graffiti at a Fulwood mosque.

Gavin Edghill, 47, of Lower Bank Road, Fulwood, pleaded guilty to five counts of racially aggravated criminal damage, one offence of racially aggravated public order and a further five counts of criminal damage.

Police launched an investigation after three separate reports of offensive and racist graffiti at Masjid E Salaam Mosque in Watling Street Road over the weekend.

Similar graffiti was found on an NHS sign nearby.

Edghill was arrested and appeared at Preston Magistrates’ Court today (Tuesday 23 April).

He was remanded in custody and will be sentenced in May.

Blog Preston