We record below incidents of racial violence and harassment that have taken place in the last months of 2005 and also note the results of court proceedings against perpetrators of attacks that took place after 7 July 2005.

• 9 January 2006: Cambridge Evening News reports that Michelle Whittaker, 20, who racially abused a young schoolboy as he played football with her 2-year-old son in Fenland, Cambridgeshire on 9 August 2005, pleaded guilty to racially aggravated intentional harassment and is ordered to carry out 80 hours unpaid work. (Cambridge Evening News 9.1.06)
• 6 January 2006: BBC News reports that Metropolitan police officer, David Yates, 26, has been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence and racially aggravated common assault following an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. He has been suspended from work since May 2005. (BBC News 6.1.06)
• 5 January 2006: Leeds Evening Post reports on the indeterminate custodial term given to 21-year-old Charles Richards, who denied attempted murder but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of GBH. He is told he will have to serve at least three years before being eligible for parole after attacking a 25-year-old Iraqi Kurdish asylum seeker in the week after the London bombings. In the attack, which was filmed on CCTV, Richards stabbed his victim eleven times, including in the jugular vein, and he was saved only because a friend stemmed the blood flow. (Leeds Evening Post 5.1.06)
• 4 January 2006: A 30-year-old Bangladeshi man has to undergo surgery after being stabbed by two men in Ashford, Kent. Police later arrest and question two men in connection with the robbery and assault that is being treated as racially motivated. (BBC News 7.1.06)
• 4 January 2006: Alfonso Greco, 51, appears in Reading crown court and denies charges of racially aggravated harassment, racially aggravated fear or provocation of violence and racially aggravated assault by beating after an incident just days after the London bombings. Greco is alleged to have threatened to kill his Asian next-door neighbours, racially abused and attacked them. A trial is due to take place at the end of January 2006. (IC Berkshire 6.1.06)
• 4 January 2006: A 59-year-old man is arrested on suspicion of racially motivated harassment of 37-year-old Police Community Support Officer Noel Baadjes while he was working in Stroud. (This is Gloucestershire 6.1.06)
• 3 January 2006: A 21-year-old Iraqi man is attacked with a bottle and thrown into a canal just minutes after calling police for help after realising he was being followed down a canal tow path by two White men, one of whom was carrying a knife. Police are treating the attack as racially motivated. (Exeter Express & Echo 5.1.06)
• 3 January 2006: Over several days, police receive thirteen reports over several days of vandalism on cars owned by Asians in the Leith area of Edinburgh, tyres have been slashed and punctured. Police are treating the incidents as racist. (Glasgow Herald 6.1.06 and BBC News 5.1.06)
• 29 December 2005: Sutton Guardian reports that two youths have been charged with racially aggravated ABH and GBH after an attack on five Asians in a Sutton Park on 29 July 2005. (Sutton Guardian 29.12.05)
• 28 December 2005: A White man attacks two women waiting in a taxi rank in Plymouth; he punches one woman and racially abuses the other and pulls off her necklace. (BBC News 30.12.05)
• 25 December 2005: An Asian family with two children leave their home in fear after being targeted over a number of days; the windows of their car and home in Batley, Leeds, were smashed on repeated occasions in the days before Christmas. The attacks are being treated as racially motivated. (Leeds Evening Post 2.1.06)
• 25 December 2005: Guardian reports that police in Merseyside are investigating racist attacks at the home of an Asian family in the Huyton area. (Guardian 24.12.05)
• 19 December 2005: An unnamed 17-year-old is given a six-month supervision order and been tagged after pleading guilty to racially abusing a shop assistant in Filton, Bristol in August 2005; the judge tells the youth he has avoided a further custodial sentences as he has spent four months on remand. (Bristol Evening Post 19.12.05)
• 19 December 2005: Derek Potts, 30, pleads guilty to charges of distributing, writing with the threat of unlawful violence and causing racially aggravated harassment alarm or distress, after admitting involvement in sending racist hate mail to an Indian take away owner in Currock, Carlisle. (Carlisle News and Star 20.12.05)
• 16 December 2005: 17-year-old Chante Smith, described as the ringleader of a gang which waged a two-year campaign against a Chinese family, is served with a two-year ASBO after being found guilty of racially harassing the owners of Chinese take away in Allestree, Derby. She is banned from using foul, abusive or racist language in public. (Derby Evening Telegraph 17.12.05)
• 16 December 2005: Cambridge Evening News reports that James McKeown, 37, has been jailed for 130 days, after being found guilty of racially aggravated harassment at Cambridge Crown Court for an attack in which he launched a tirade at a Muslim man walking down a Cambridge street on the day of the London bombings. (Cambridge Evening News 16.12.05)
• 14 December 2005: A 35-year-old Indian restaurant delivery driver is racially abused, punched and kicked by a gang of four White teenagers who also damage his van in Bracknell, Berkshire. (IC Berkshire 22.12.05)
• 13 December 2005: Gerald Goddard, 63, is arrested at Manchester airport and charged with seven counts of racially aggravated criminal damage in connection with racist graffiti painted in a stairwell in a terminal car park. (BBC News 22.12.05)
• 11 December 2005: Two Asians working at a petrol station in Surrey are assaulted by a customer who intervenes after one of the shop workers asks a group of youths to leave. The White man racially abuses the workers and then proceeds to throw bottles of water, a television and bottles of alcohol at the Asian men. (Staines Guardian 29.12.05)
• 24 November 2005: Two Asian men are badly beaten after a mob of men and women surround a flat in Dewsbury, west Yorkshire and the ringleaders break down their door and attack the men, who suffer serious facial injuries. (Guardian 24.11.06)
• 21 November 2005: Sun reports that Richard Norman, 29, who threw a brick through the window of his Muslim neighbour’s house in Rotherham, south Yorkshire in November 2005 admits racially aggravated criminal damage at Sheffield crown court and is sentenced to nine months in prison. (Sun 21.11.05)
• 20 November 2005: An 18-year-old Black student suffers a fractured skull after being attacked by a gang of youths outside a bowling alley in Worthing, west Sussex. Witnesses allege the attack was racially motivated and police arrest four teenagers who are later released on bail. (Times and Daily Mirror 21.11.05)
• 16 November 2005: A 12-year-old drunken girl attacks a 33-year-old Asian man twice in one night in Torquay. In the first incident she chases his car after it stops at lights shouting abuse, and then she ambushed him as he leaves the cinema he entered to escape from her. (Daily Mirror 19.11.05)
• 13 November 2005: A Bangladeshi cab driver is attacked and racially abused by a gang of three men that he picks up from a Bangladeshi restaurant in Whitley Bay. The owner of the cab firm criticises the slow police response. (Newcastle Evening Chronicle 16.11.05)
• 13 November 2005: While waiting for a train at Mottingham station Stephen Thompson, 25, is attacked by two youths armed with a knife and screwdriver. He is racially abused, stripped to his waist and bitten by the men. (News Shopper 23.11.05)
• 8 November 2005: An 11-year-old boy is attacked by a gang of five from his school, Beacon School in Banstead, who racially abuse, punch and kick him. Police are appealing for witnesses, the school has refused to comment. (IC Surrey Online 22.11.05)
• 5 November 2005: Kent Online reports that a 23-year-old Chinese student has suffered a serious gash to his face which needed stitches after being attacked with an unknown weapon. The man and his girlfriend were cycling in Canterbury and were approached by a group of four, one of whom racially abused the couple and attacked the man. Two 13-year-olds and a 15-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl have been arrested in connection with the incident and were later released on bail. (Kentish Gazette 3.1.06)
• 24 October 2005: Warwick Boar, a student newspaper, reports that teenage gangs in the Canley area of Coventry have been targeting international students at Warwick University; verbally abusing and stealing from them. (Warwick Boar 24.10.05)
• 21 August 2005: Ticket Inspector Richard Wallace, 27, racially abuses and attacks Maidstone’s deputy Imam Arshed Mahmood. He later pleads guilty to wounding with intent to cause GBH and that the offence was racially aggravated. He is granted conditional bail. (Kent Online)

Related links

Full listing of racially motivated crime after the London bombings (Word file, 168 kb)

Islamic Human Rights Commission

Islamic Human Rights Commission on-line racist incident reporting form

Positive Action in Housing on-line racist incident reporting form

Positive Action in Housing

Muslim Public Affairs Committee