Gang jailed for attack on restaurant staff
Categories: Latest News
Thursday February 20 2014
Local paper, The Cambridge News, reports on the sentencing of a gang of young men for their abuse and assault of staff at a Thai restaurant in the city in the days following the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.
The gang of five repeatedly chanted ‘EDL’ at the staff as they beat up two brothers while throwing glass bottles and bins. The brothers are said to have suffered damaged ribs in the assault.
The restaurant owner, who did not want to be named, told the paper “It was very nasty. They attacked staff for no reason who were trying to get on with their work and shouted racial abuse, which was completely and utterly disgraceful.
“I’m glad they have been given these sentences. These are thugs who have got nothing better to do and hopefully this will teach them a lesson that it’s not something they can get away with.”
Prosecutor Marti Blair said “A member of staff thought it could be some sort of hate race incident and he called police, which was reasonable given the Lee Rigby killing had only just taken place a couple of weeks earlier and there had followed a number of race hate attacks at that time.”
“All of the witnesses describe how the group were chanting EDL and saying things like ‘go back to your country’.”
Joshua Collinson-Prime, 19, William Jacey, 21, and a 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, all admitted violent disorder.
Leon Jackson, 24, and Daniel Mooney, 20, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of racially aggravated threatening behaviour.
Jacey was jailed for a year, Collinson-Prime was sent to a youth offenders’ institution for a year and the youth was given a one-year detention and training order.
Jackson and Mooney were each given eight-month jail sentences suspended for two years and must do 200 hours of unpaid work.
The newspaper adds that the “young group have nearly 40 previous convictions between them.”
A spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes was reported in a number of regions in the weeks and months following the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.
Police figures released last month revealed two Islamophobic hate crimes in Cambridge during the period October 2012 to March 2013. In comparison, between April and June 2013, there were 12 Islamophobic hate crimes in Cambridge.