The same judge who spared jail for a man who attacked someone burning a Quran with a knife gave a man a prison sentence for sending nasty email to John Bercow. Rule of lawyers in action…
Judge Adam Hiddleston gave Moussa Kadri a 20-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months. In Knightsbridge in February Kadri had seen a man setting alight the Quran and shouted “I’m going to kill you” before “slashing at him with a knife.”
Hiddleston said in his remarks that Kadri is of “previously exemplary character” and “much respected” in doing charity work. He said he accepted Kadri’s “remorse” and “there is an almost non-existent chance of repetition of this behaviour” and the effect of his incarceration on others “would be wholly disproportionate.“According to the sentencing remarks Kadri tried to mislead investigators into thinking he attacked Coskun with a palette knife…
Free Speech Union director Toby Young said after the sentencing that it “sends a green light to any Muslim who wants to enforce an Islamic blasphemy code by taking the law into their own hands. The court is effectively saying that if you attack a blasphemer with a knife, he will be convicted of causing you harassment, alarm or distress and you won’t have to spend a day behind bars.” Judge Hiddleston has taken a different point of view in the past…
In 2021 Hiddleston jailed a 35-year-old businessman for one year for sending rude and at times threatening emails to Bercow, Ed Davey, Ian Blackford, Corbyn, and Amber Rudd among others. He said: “I have no doubt that you did harbour a deep-seated animosity to those who held opposing views to your own and that appeared to have been your motivation. The contents of those emails were vile.” More vile than a knife attack?