CPS West Midlands: Successful Hate Crime Cases December 2022

In December 2022, CPS West Midlands Magistrates' and Crown Court units successfully prosecuted various hate crime cases.

On Saturday 14 May 2022, the 34-year-old defendant from Sefton shouted homophobic abuse at Chelsea fans at Wembley Park Underground Station on his way to the Chelsea versus Liverpool football match. The police stopped him from attending the match and charged him with homophobic section 5 public order act offence. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing  at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and was sentenced at the same court on 5 December 2022. He received a financial penalty of £400 which had been increased by £100 to reflect the hate crime. He was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £85 and the victim surcharge of £40.

On 21 May 2022, a 28-year-old Stoke-on-Trent woman who was intoxicated subjected a Staffordshire taxi driver to racist and physical abuse after her card was declined. The abuse was recorded by the taxi base and after about seven minutes of abuse, she fled the taxi. That same night, she punched one of the police officers who asked her to move back from the scene of a separate road traffic collision. She was arrested and taken to the police station where she grabbed and pinched the forearm of another officer.

She pleaded guilty to a racially aggravated assault and to assaulting the two emergency workers at the first hearing on 24 November 2022.  She was sentenced at Newcastle Under Lyme Magistrates’ Court on 15 December 2022 where she received eight weeks custodial sentence which was suspended for 12 months.  She was informed that she would have received a community order for the assault on the taxi driver, but this had been increased to a custodial sentence due to the hate crime. She also received eight weeks custodial sentence for assaulting the emergency workers which was concurrent to the eight weeks for the racially aggravated assault.  She was ordered to take part in 20 rehabilitation activity requirement days and 90 days of alcohol abstinence.  She was ordered to pay £200 compensation to the taxi driver, £100 to the officer she hit and £30 to the officer she pinched.  She was also ordered to pay £185 costs and the £128 victim surcharge.

On 26 April 2022, a 51-year-old Nottingham man directed religious hatred towards one of the police officers who had arrested him at Nottingham Railway Station for other matters. He was charged with a religiously aggravated public order offence which he denied but later he entered a guilty plea on 5 August 2022 at the trial at Mansfield Magistrates’ Court. He was sentenced on 1 December 2022 at the same court for a variety of offences and he received six weeks custodial sentence for the religiously aggravated public order offence which had been increased by two weeks to reflect the hate crime.

On 13 July 2022, a 44-year-old man from Birmingham who was drunk, directed racist abuse at one of the police officers who had arrested him following complaints of a drunk male banging on a door. He was further arrested for a racially aggravated public order offence. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court and was sentenced at the same court on 7 December 2022 to eight weeks custodial sentence which was suspended for 12 months.  He was informed that the sentence had been increased by four weeks because of the hate crime. He was also ordered to take part in 25 rehabilitation activity requirement days and to abstain from alcohol for 120 days.  He was also ordered to pay £50 compensation to the officer, £185 costs and the victim surcharge of £154.

On 14 June 2022, a 33-year-old defendant from Bewdley directed racist abuse and threatened violence at his neighbour’s nine-year-old son after having shouted abuse at his neighbour and threatened to burn her and her mother. He also tried to climb in through her kitchen window, damaging her blind and a vase as he did so.  He was charged with a racially aggravated s4A public order offence for his behaviour towards the child, s4A public order offences towards the first victim and her mother and criminal damage. The defendant pleaded guilty to the offences except for the hate crime. He was convicted after trial and was later sentenced on 13 December 2022 at Worcester Magistrates’ Court. He received a 26 week custodial sentence which was suspended for 18 months. He was ordered to abstain from alcohol for 90 days. He was informed that the sentence had been increased to reflect the hate crime and was also ordered to pay £200 compensation to the child and £100 to each of the other two victims together with £360 for the criminal damage.  He was also ordered to pay costs of £500 and the Victim Surcharge of £156.  A restraining order was granted prohibiting him from contacting the victims for three years.

In November 2022, a 44-year-old defendant from Stoke-on-Trent racially abused his neighbour and was charged with a racially aggravated public order offence.  He then harassed the same neighbour and his partner by shouting and banging on their door and on one occasion, kicked the door off its hinges. He also stole property from another neighbour. He was sentenced at Newcastle Under Lyme Magistrates’ Court on 13 December 2022 and he received 18 weeks custodial sentence for the racially aggravated public order offence which had been increased by six weeks to reflect the hate crime.  He received a further four weeks imprisonment for the harassment, a 20-week custodial sentence as a suspended sentence was activated and two further weeks for the theft. He was ordered to pay £300 compensation to the victims and a restraining order was imposed prohibiting him from communicating with the victims or attending their address for 18 months.

A 55-year-old Solihull man threatened a neighbour with an imitation pistol in July 2021, and when officers attended his address and found the imitation weapon under the bed, he denied knowledge of the pistol and became aggressive. He then lashed out at an officer and racially abused him immediately after. The defendant pleaded guilty to possession of an imitation firearm and racially aggravated assault at a hearing on 26 October 2022 at Birmingham Crown Court. He was sentenced on 14 December 2022 to 27 months’ imprisonment. The hate crime offence was uplifted from a community order to four months’ imprisonment after taking account of his credit for a guilty plea.

A 19-year-old man from Wolverhampton assaulted a police officer at Oldbury Police Station on 5 September 2022 and also assaulted another officer, punching her twice in the face. The defendant also vandalised the cell where he was being held and when he was further arrested for criminal damage, he racially abused the police officer. At a hearing on 8 December 2022 at Wolverhampton Crown Court, the defendant pleaded guilty to assault of an emergency worker, racially aggravated intentional harassment, and criminal damage. He was sentenced to 14 months’ imprisonment on the following day. The hate crime offence was uplifted from four months to six months’ imprisonment.