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Suspended jail term handed to English Defence League protester

By
July 23, 2013
CRASBO, EDL, English Defence League, Public order offence, Racial Conviction, religiously-aggravated offence, Suspended sentence, threatening behaviour

A protester at an English Defence League march in Walsall has been given a suspended jail term and banned from any demonstrations for four years.

Peter Jelley outside Walsall Magistrates Court

Peter Jelley was caught on CCTV gesturing and shouting at a line of police in Walsall as trouble broke out at the rally last autumn. He was sentenced to 20 weeks in custody, suspended by a year, and given a Criminal Anti-Social Behaviour Order at the town’s magistrates court.

The 24-year-old from Shropshire admitted a public order offence of using threatening or abusive behaviour at a previous court hearing and was sentenced yesterday.

The footage from the afternoon of September 29 was played to District Judge Michael Morris and showed Jelley walking up to officers and ‘gesticulating and shouting.’ This was despite the efforts of a female to pull him away.

Mr Paul Nicholas, defending, said: “He has faced up to what he has done, he has faced up to being part of the march. He is shameful of what he has done.”

He insisted his client had disassociated himself from others and had become angry after a relative was hurt. The court was told Jelley has previous convictions for a racially aggravated offence in 2011 and assault the year before.

District Judge Michael Morris said: “You went there knowing what would happen. You were on the frontline facing up to police, clearly agitated and pointing to police.”

Jelley, of Prescott Close, Shrewsbury, was sentenced to five months in custody, suspended for a year.

He was also ordered to do 250 unpaid work and go to an adult attendance centre for 36 hours.

He was also ordered to pay £80 victim surcharge and £85 costs.

Express & Star

Racial abuser is forgiven by pupils

By
July 22, 2013
possessing an offensive weapon, Racial Conviction, racially aggravated abusive words, Suspended sentence

KIND-HEARTED pupils have forgiven a recovering alcoholic who threatened and racially abused them inside a secondary school.

Trudie Toker threatened to stab students at St Andrew’s CofE High School in Croydon and told teachers the pupils needed “their black heads bashed in”.

The 33-year-old was drunk when she entered the school grounds in Warrington Road and launched the vicious attack on May 21.

The pupils met with teachers after the verbal assault and were offered support and the chance to discuss their thoughts and feelings.

Instead of feeling angry and upset, the students said they felt sorry for Toker as it was clear she had a drinking problem.

Head teacher David Matthews said he was proud of the school’s students for showing such compassion.

He added: “As a Christian school, we encourage forgiveness as an active force for good.

“Prayer is a natural Christian response to situations that we do not fully understand.

“That some St Andrew’s students have wanted to pray about this woman shows their commitment to a better society where distress and pain are reduced.”

Toker appeared at Croydon Crown Court on March 18 after pleading guilty to using racially threatening words and possession of a bladed article.

The court heard she had also brought out a knife in front of a mother and baby on a bus on February 10 last year.

Defending Toker, Oliver Weetch said his client was trying to give up alcohol and had already managed to quit heroin.

Toker, who lives on the same road as the school, told the Advertiser she shouted the abuse in retaliation after the pupils insulted her.

She also claimed that her neighbour had suffered because of antisocial behaviour from pupils and she was sticking up for her.

While Toker admitted she had a fiery temper, she denied being a racist.

“I have mixed-race people in my family,” she said.

“I retaliated and I shouldn’t have done. I should have known better because I’m older.”

Toker was sentenced to nine months in jail suspended for 18 months, and ordered to complete an alcohol treatment programme.

Judge Daniel Flahive told the defendant she needed psychological help and supervision within the community.

He added: “I was of the view that there was no option but to send you to prison, but I am going to give you a chance.”

This is Croydon

Animal ban after llamas left to starve

By
July 22, 2013
EDL, English Defence League, Infidels, Suspended sentence

A HERD of llamas starved after being deprived of food on a holding in Yorkshire, a court was told.

Harrogate magistrates heard five of John Shaw’s llamas died, while the other animals were found in an emaciated state in a frozen field on the outskirts of Knaresborough in February, with scant grazing, an empty ring-feeder and dilapidated shelter.

Shaw, 41, of Littondale Avenue, Knaresborough, said he could not afford to feed them.

He pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering leading to death and two counts of not providing a suitable diet and failing to protect the llamas from pain, suffering and disease.

He was jailed for 12 weeks, suspended for a year, and ordered to do 200 hours of unpaid work, with £3,050 costs, and given a 10-year ban on keeping animals.


Yorkshire Post

English Defence League’s planned march on mosque is pointless

By
July 19, 2013
EDL, English Defence League, Racial Conviction, religiously aggravated intentional harassment, Suspended sentence

Dudley council criticises far-right group for going ahead with protest at abandoned development

A member of the English Defence League at a demonstration

A member of the English Defence League at a demonstration. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA Wire/Press Association Images

The English Defence League’s summer of protests to target Muslim communities is to continue with a demonstration against a “super mosque”, even though the development is no longer going ahead.

The far-right group will return to Dudley next Saturday to demonstrate against the abandoned mosque and community centre project. The council has branded the protest “pointless” and a “waste of taxpayers’ money” as police will be required to ensure safety.

A plea from the council for the organisation to cancel the demonstration came as an EDL protester appeared in court today for putting a pig’s head on the wall of Dudley central mosque.

Anne Millward, leader of the council, said: “The EDL’s unnecessary visits, which often result in major disruption, violence and public disorder, cost the taxpayer and local communities thousands of pounds.

“We are opposed to this proposed event and call on the organisers to cancel this pointless waste of taxpayers’ money.”

But a promotional video by the Bristol division of the EDL said: “The Dudley Muslim Association is determined to force this mosque on the people of Dudley … The EDL will keep coming back until it is scrapped.”

The previous protest against the mosque cost the council over £150,000, damaged local business revenue and resulted in 12 people being arrested.

A council spokesman said: “Council bosses have made it clear that outside extremists can make no contribution to local decisions and reminded the EDL that the plans for a mosque on Hall Street are not currently being pursued.

“The EDL has opposed the former proposal for a mosque but the council has reiterated the fact that the authority and the Dudley Muslim Association have agreed to pursue an alternative site, making the EDL’s visit pointless.”

Margot James, the MP for Stourbridge, near Dudley, wrote to the Home Office asking that police powers be extended to enable them to ban all forms of protest on the grounds of public order when they have a case to do so. She says she is keen to maintain freedom of expression but “a loophole that allows the EDL to call their activity a rally not a march, so as to escape a potential ban, should be closed”.

The league has demonstrated in Newcastle and Bradford but cancelled a planned protest in Tower Hamlets, London, after one of its leaders, Tommy Robinson, told the East London Advertiser it would be a “suicide mission”.

An EDL protester, Kevin Smith, has been given a suspended eight-week prison sentence for putting a pig’s head on the wall of Dudley central mosque in the Castle Hill area of the town on 29 May.

Police believe Smith, 52, of Brierley Hill, was on his way to the Newcastle demonstration when the act took place.He was arrested on 2 June and has been found guilty of religiously aggravated intentional harassment at Dudley magistrates court. Muslims regard pigs as unclean.

Smith was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, and among the conditions imposed was an order that he stay out of the Castle Hill area.

Muslims account for about 2.5% of the population of Dudley. The council says it is exploring the possibility of developing the existing Dudley central mosque as an alternative to the scrapped Hall Street scheme.

Unite Against Fascism has pledged to hold a counter-demonstration next Saturday after protesting against the EDL in April by holding a multi-faith celebration.

The Guardian

Internet chat room groomer flew to Canada to meet 13-year-old girl

By
July 19, 2013
sexual grooming, Suspended sentence

A 37-year-old Hull man flew to Canada to meet a teenage girl he had been grooming on the Internet, a court heard.

When Brett Moses arrived in Vancouver, he then took an 11 hour bus journey to meet the 13-year-old in Grand Forks.

He was stopped by Canadian police following concerns by the parents of one of the girl’s friends.

Moses, a security guard in Hull, has now been given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, after earlier pleading guilty to sexual grooming.

Hull Crown Court heard that he first started speaking to the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on an Internet chat room in 2004.

He claimed to be a 13-year-old called John Smith and initially spoke to the girl’s father.

It was him who introduced Moses to his daughter, having heard claims of “John” being beaten and abused by a foster father.

The correspondence continued for seven or eight months, in which time Moses was introduced online to some of the 13-year-old’s friends.

It was June 2005 when Moses travelled to Canada.

On arrival to Grand Forks, he telephoned the 13-year-old girl, but got no reply.

He then called her friend, whose parents questioned Moses and went to meet him, asking to see identification.

The prosecution said Moses claimed to have lost his ID, saying he was Brian Patterson and that John Smith was his foster son, and had been too ill to travel.

Eventually Moses confessed to the authorities, was detained and deported to the UK, where he was met by British police.

This is Hull

Racist who filled Muslims’ shoes with ham as they prayed in a mosque walks free from court

By
July 19, 2013
Racial Conviction, religiously aggravated harassment, Suspended sentence

A racist thug who stuffed ham into the shoes of Muslim worshippers at a mosque has escaped a jail term.

Jamie Knowlson, 30, also draped slices of the meat – which Muslims are banned from eating – on railings outside the mosque as his victims prayed inside.

He was then caught on CCTV hurling abuse at worshippers after they confronted him over his sacrilegious act.

Islam teaches its followers to avoid pig meat as it makes them impure and unclean.

Knowlson initially told police the stunt was a drunken joke but later admitted that he was fully aware of the offence his actions would cause.

He pleaded guilty to causing racially or religiously aggravated harassment and could have been jailed for up to two years.

But walked free from Bristol Crown Court with a suspended six-month prison sentence because he had returned to the mosque to apologise for his actions.

Sentencing, Her Honour Judge Carol Hagen said: ‘It is difficult to imagine a more offensive incident.

‘Not only the fixing of meat to railings but aggravated, in my view, that members of the mosque were inside praying at the time.’

The court heard that Knowlson, from Kingswood, Bristol, targeted the Al-Baseera mosque in the St Judes area of the city which is used by more than 2,000 Somali Muslims every week.

He crept to the mosque from nearby Redwood House homeless shelter on January 9 this year – putting ham in footwear and on railings outside the building as worshippers prayed.

CCTV footage showed him returning to the shelter, where he was confronted by the mosque’s caretaker Abdi Djmaa.

As Mr Djmaa returned to the mosque he heard shouts of ‘the next visit will be harder’, ‘bad meat’ and ‘girls’ coming from the direction of the building

David Hunter, prosecuting at Bristol Crown Court, said it had been a premeditated attack specifically targeted at the Muslim community.

The court heard that shamed Knowlson had returned to the mosque to apologise after the hate crime.

Ian Halliday, defending, said: ‘This was a brutal, misconceived, drunken prank.’

He returned to the mosque and offered his apologies in person.

Knowlson sat in tears as he was handed a six-month suspended sentence and 150 hours of unpaid work.

A second man is due to stand trial in connection with the incident later this month.

After sentencing, Mubarak Mohamud, one of the three imams at the Al-Baseera mosque, claimed the inflammatory act had upset the Muslim community.

He said: ‘There wasn’t anger, people were more upset and shocked.

‘We don’t eat pork and we are banned by our faith from eating it, as it makes us impure when we are going to our prayers.

‘We don’t hate the man – we just suppose he doesn’t know us.’

Knowlson refused to comment after leaving court.

Daily Mail

Drunken Bristol father of six who groped a teenage girl gets suspended sentence

By
July 19, 2013
sex abuse, Suspended sentence

A FOOTBALL hooligan who groped a 14-year-old girl on a bus has been handed a suspended prison sentence.

Drunken Kevin Jenkins, 45, sexually assaulted the schoolgirl as she made her way home from the ice rink in Bristol city centre.

Jenkins asked the teenager to eat a Malteser out of his hand before grabbing her thighs and buttocks as she walked past, Bristol Magistrates’ Court heard.

The court was told the assault, which Jenkins admitted at an earlier hearing, had left the girl feeling withdrawn, frightened and embarrassed.

Father-of-six Jenkins targeted the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, at 10.45pm on January 16 after drinking heavily with a friend.

Neil Treharne, prosecuting, said Jenkins put his leg across the gangway of the bus to stop the girl passing then told her she could only get by if she ate one of his Maltesers.

When she refused, he asked her to eat it from his hand before forcing the chocolate into her mouth, the court heard.

Mr Treharne said that as he allowed the teenager to pass him, Jenkins rubbed the girl’s thighs and buttocks with his hands before telling her to “jog on”.

The court was told the teenager now suffers with anxiety and had felt “physically sick” on seeing Jenkins at a bus stop since the attack.

Mr Treharne said Bristol Rovers supporter Jenkins, of Mancroft Avenue, Lawrence Weston, had 17 offences to his name and had been made the subject of a football banning order.

Victoria Ellis, defending, said her client was ashamed and disgusted by his actions. She said: “He has six children and if something like this happened to one of his own daughters he would be horrified. He has a very sketchy memory of that night and the only way he can explain his behaviour is that he had consumed an extremely large amount of alcohol.”

Magistrates handed Jenkins a 10-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, and ordered him to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work.

He will be added to the sex offenders’ register and was told to take part in a 12-month community order, attend a programme for substance-related crime, pay £250 in compensation to the girl and £60 court costs.


This is Bristol

Man photographed with stick moments before attack on Kingston Mosque is spared jail

By
July 18, 2013
criminal damage, Fined, Jailed, Public order offence, Racial Conviction, religiously-aggravated offence, Suspended sentence
Henry Hunter

Henry Hunter

A teenager found guilty of violent disorder following an attack on Kingston Mosque has been spared jail.

Henry Hunter, 19, was convicted last month after a gang of young men laid siege to a mosque in East Road, having previously attended a protest march against Muslim extremism, in November 2010.

But he was acquitted of racially aggravated criminal damage.

At Kingston Crown Court this morning, Hunter, from Ashford in Middlesex, was sentenced to six months at a young offenders’ institute, suspended for 12 months.

He was fined £1,000, given 250 hours of unpaid work, and handed a four month curfew order banning him from leaving his home on Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights.

Hunter was also given an exclusion order banning him from Kingston town centre for a year.

Before the sentence was passed, Hunter’s solicitor Michael Green told Recorder Roderick Fletcher that Hunter was a young man of previous good character who had not been in trouble before or after the mosque attack.

Mr Green said Hunter’s attitude had changed considerably in the two years since the attack, and he was now also holding down a job as a fork lift truck driver.

He contrasted Hunter’s police record with those of Martin Pottle and Alfie Wallace, who, along with David Morris, were all jailed for the attack in April.

Mr Green said Pottle had four previous public order offences and had been sentenced to six months in prison for affray in 2010.

Wallace had convictions for violence, robbery, criminal damage, assaulting a police officer and racially aggravated offences.

Mr Green also pointed to the fact Hunter handed himself into the police voluntarily, after his picture appeared on the front page of the Surrey Comet in the wake of the convictions of Pottle, Wallace and Morris.

Mr Green said: “This is a young man who handed himself into a police station after his picture was published in the Surrey Comet on the same day.

“His attitudes have changed considerably, his personal circumstances have changed considerably.

“He hopes to be given the opportunity to carry on working. Things have changed in terms of his employment, and in terms of his attitude.

“There are no new offences. The author of the pre-sentence report has spoken to the police and there is no suggestion he has been involved in any previous activity.”

Sentencing Hunter, Recorder Fletcher said: “You surrendered voluntarily to the police, you are currently in employment and you have a stable home environment.

“You’ve made important changes to your lifestyle and attitude in the past two years.”

“I’ve felt able to take a different course in your case to the course taken regarding Mr Pottle and Mr Wallace.

“Mr Pottle was substantially older than you, and Mr Wallace was marginally older than you.

“Both were convicted of two offences – violent disorder and religiously aggravated damage to property and both had relevant previous convictions.

“In these circumstances I’ve taken what could be considered as an unusual course in relation to your sentence.”

Surrey Comet

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

Man threw bottle as EDL protested at army parade

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

A MAN who took aim with a bottle as English Defence League supporters clashed with young Asians during an army parade has escaped being jailed – despite being sentenced for affray days before the clash.

Daniel Groves, 23, of Kettlewell Close, Warwick, pleaded guilty at the crown court in Leamington to a charge of affray and was sentenced to six months in prison suspended for two years.

He was given 18 months supervision, banned from all pubs and clubs for three months and made subject to a 8pm to 6am electronic-tag curfew for the same period.

The court heard that Groves had convictions for affray and public order offences and four days before the clash had been given a community sentence for an affray in Warwick town centre.

Prosecutor Vicki Lofrese said in September the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers were on parade in Nuneaton when police spotted English Defence League (EDL) supporters heading towards a pub.

She said: “Large banners were being paraded and slogans shouted from members of that group, including ‘I am English ’til I die’ and ‘St George in my heart.’

“Police saw a group of about 20 in the drinking area outside singing the same slogans and ‘Taliban scum’ as a group of young Asian men began to congregate outside.”

As the tension mounted and police struggled to keep them apart, Groves was spotted throwing the bottle, which smashed near the Asian youths, and he was arrested after a struggle.

He claimed the Asians were planning to attack them, denied being a member of the EDL but said he believed in its policies and was “against radical Muslims”.

Groves said that the EDL protected British troops by providing a target for those protesting against them.

Peter Freeman, defending, said: “Nuneaton is a long way from Warwick, but this was a trip with his friend whose cousin was in the regiment.

“He is standing there chatting with a bottle in his hand. He is about five rows back, and something triggers him to lob the bottle.

“ He does not know whether it was a coin or a pebble, but something struck him and he lost his rag.

“He says it is not right that people can turn up and shout abuse at our soldiers, but he never went there looking for trouble.”

Mr Freeman said Groves has had “a glowing report” from his probation officer.

Mrs Justice Macur told Groves: “I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt that this offence was not racially or religiously motivated – but you are running out of chances.”

The Courier