Four sentenced for throwing pig’s head into Blackpool mosque
Categories: Latest News
Thursday November 20 2014
The Daily Mail, Daily Star, Daily Mirror, and Blackpool Gazette all report on the sentencing of four men who admitted to causing religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress in relation to a hate crime incident last year.
Thomas Ashton, 21, Andrew Warner, 30, Travis Crabtree, 25, and Steven White, 28, were jailed for throwing a pig’s head into Blackpool Central Mosque after afternoon prayers on 24 May 2013, days after the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.
Earlier this week the court heard how Ashton and Crabtree drove to a butcher’s shop where they purchased the pig’s head and then carried it in a bag to the front of the mosque. A volunteer at the mosque who was preparing for evening classes notified police after seeing the bag and the pig’s ear protruding out of it in the mosque car park.
Following the incident, messages were posted onto Facebook saying “A pig’s head has just been delivered to the mosque in Blackpool” and “They will be fuming”. The posts were subsequently used by the police to trace White.
According to the Daily Mail and Blackpool Gazette, White’s mobile phone was seized and the police further discovered a video showing a car being driven by Warner and comments being made regarding Muslims that suggested all four offenders knew of the significance of a pig’s head.
Although the local imam Ashfaq Patel requested that the judge avoid passing custodial sentence provided the men showed contrition for their actions and the distress caused, Judge Graham Knowles described the incident as ‘poisonous’.
Judge Knowles said “People are and must be free to worship as they please and without this kind of foul attack on them and that which they hold sacred.
“What you four did must be denounced.”
Ashton and Crabtree were sentenced to 10 months and 14 months respectively, Warner was jailed for 7 months and White for 8 months.