Man jailed for 12 months for cursing and throwing beer over Muslim woman
Categories: Latest News
Tuesday December 09 2014
The Yorkshire Post covers the trial of a man in court on charges of racially aggravated assault, affray and possession of a bladed weapon in a public place after he harassed a Muslim woman and her young child as they walked past his house in Harehills, Leeds.
Kravier Freeman, 31, who had just been released from prison before the incident and who was inebriated at the time of the assault, abused the Muslim woman, a convert, as she walked home with her young son shouting “Why are you with a p***? Why are you wearing those clothes? You are not a Muslim!”
Freeman followed the woman as she walked along the street calling her a “Muslim bitch” and dousing her and her young child with alcohol from a beer can.
When asked by his victim why he was behaving in such a manner, Freeman responded, “Because I hate Muslims.”
Freeman then pulled out a silver butcher’s knife and began waving it around telling his victim “Watch what I am going to do when your husband comes out.”
Freeman was charged with racially aggravated assault, affray and possession of a bladed weapon in a public place. He was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court to 12 months’ imprisonment. Judge Ray Singh told him: “You behaved in a vile, nasty and racist manner. For a Muslim to be doused in alcohol – we can only imagine what was going through her mind.”
The incident is another example of an Islamophobic crime that has been prosecuted as racially aggravated and not religious aggravated despite the clear references to the woman’s religious identity as motive for the crime.