Man sentenced to 18 month community order for “I’m a racist and I kill Muslims” threat

Local paper, the Wrexham Leader, reports on the court appearance of a man who walked into a shop on the first anniversary of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby, on May 23^rd, and told the Muslim owner “I’m a racist and I kill Muslims”.

Daniel Lee Lewis, 32, was drunk at the time of the incident and claimed to have no recollection of the events.

Lewis walked into a shop in Flint and asked the owner where he was from and whether he was a Muslim. The owner replied to say he was Turkish but held a British passport and that he was a Muslim. To this Lewis replied, “It’s alright, I won’t cause any trouble. It’s my country, I will do what I want. I’m a racist and I kill Muslims.”

Lewis then called the man out of the shop to fight and when the police arrived told them: “It’s one year today to the death of Lee Rigby, there will be thousands of us in Manchester on Saturday,” before chanting EDL [English Defence League] at them.

At Wrexham Magistrates Court last week, Lewis pleaded guilty to using threatening or abusive words or behaviour with intent to cause racially aggravated fear of or provoke unlawful violence. He also admitted failure to surrender to bail.

In imposing sentence, Judge Gwyn Jones told Lewis: “This was extremely upsetting behaviour. You gratuitously made offensive and racist comments to someone who was serving members of the public.

“It is clear you were very, very drunk but that does not justify using such offensive and appalling language. Taking that into account, it makes this a hate crime, serious enough for a community order and you will pay compensation for the pain you caused the victim.”

Lewis was given an 18 month community order, supervised by probation and the community mental health team. He was ordered to undertake a 10 day ‘eradicating racism and promoting equality programme’, and pay £200 in compensation. He was also ordered to pay court costs of £85 and a victim surcharge of £60.”