Middlesbrough fan fined for Qur'an burning stunt

Categories: Latest News
Tuesday March 04 2014
The Daily Mail yesterday covered news of the court appearance of a man charged with a religiously aggravated public order offence after he tore up pages of the Qur’an at a football match and mimicked burning them.
Middlesbrough fan, Mark Stephenson, 25, was handed pages torn from a copy of the Qur’an by a female fan and proceeded to tear the pages up and mimic lighting a fire to burn them. When approached by a steward who asked what the sheets of paper were, Stephenson replied:
“It’s the Muslim Bible, we hate Muslims.”
Other fans were shouting and chanting at the time of the offence, and the words ‘Koran, Muslims and burning’ were overheard by a steward.
Stephenson was fined £235 by Birmingham Magistrates Court. He was also ordered to pay £105 costs and a £23 victim surcharge.
Chair of the bench, Ronald Healy, told Stephenson,
‘It’s lucky in some respects that nothing occurred as a result of your actions.
‘Incidents of this kind are considered extremely offensive to some members of the community. We hope that in the future you will not ever, ever participate in any such incident.”
Two women charged in connection with events at the football match pleaded not guilty to a religiously aggravated public order offence.
Pub worker Julie Phillips, 50, and Gemma Parkin, 18, were bailed to stand trial at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on May 1, according to the paper.