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Two sentenced for hate crime incident at Edinburgh mosque

Two sentenced for hate crime incident at Edinburgh mosque

Categories: Latest News

Tuesday June 24 2014

STV TV reports on the sentencing of two of the three people involved in a hate crime incident at Edinburgh mosque in January 2013.

Chelsea Lambie, 18, and Douglas Cruikshank, 38, denied charges of racially aggravated threatening behaviour after strips of bacon were thrown into the mosque and wrapped around handles of the main doors of the mosque.

STV reports that the two have been sentenced to a year in prison and nine months, respectively.

Cruikshank who had denied the earlier charge changed his plea after prosecutors dropped the ‘racially aggravated’ element of the case against him.

In a recent report on hate crime, the Law Commission found that enhanced sentencing is not being used sufficiently in prosecuting hate crimes. The report explores the use of enhanced sentencing for hate crime under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 through consultations with stakeholders, including NGOs, and found that many of its consultees expressed concern over the use of unduly lenient sentences in cases prosecuted as hate crimes, even when enhanced sentencing is applied.

The Law Commission report further states: “The enhanced sentencing system is a potentially powerful weapon in the fight against hate crime. Its communicative power lies in the requirement that the judge declares in open court that the offender’s sentence has been increased because the hate element has made the offence more serious. But it is being under-used and no adequate record is made of cases where it has been applied.”

A third person involved in the incident, Wayne Stilwell, was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment in September 2013 after pleading guilty to causing a breach of the peace.

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