A Muslim businessman who threatened to behead a UKIP candidate has had his conviction quashed after the judge decided the threat was merely a “throw away, angry line”.
The judge said Aftab Ahmed, 45, made the comments because of his “attitude towards UKIP” and they weren’t to be taken seriously.
The threat was made to the UKIP candidate for Newcastle East in the lead up to May’s General Election. Mr. Ahmed was found guilty of threatening the life of David Robinson-Young on April 21 last year, and was handed a 12 months community order with a rehabilitation requirement of 20 days.
He also ordered him to carry out 100 hours unpaid work in community and to pay £1,660 court costs and a £60 victim surcharge.
However, last Friday, he won an appeal against his conviction, despite the court hearing that had said to Mr. Robinson-Young: “Why don’t you f**k off or you will be beheaded next” when he phoned his house to campaign.
According to the Chronicle Live, the panel at Newcastle Crown Court accepted Mr Robinson-Young’s account of what happened during the heated conversation in its entirety.
However, the judge said Mr. Ahmed’s appeal would be allowed on the basis that they were not convinced he intended Mr. Robinson-Young to take the threat seriously.
Judge Bindloss said: “We cannot say with confidence that that was the appellant’s intention. It may have been a throw away, angry line issued by him during a heated conversation, just before hanging up.”
The judge added that Ahmed’s possible lack of intention behind the angry words meant he won the appeal and added: “It was for that reason and that reason alone.”
During the initial court case last year, Mr. Ahmed claimed he said over the phone: “Your government has been supporting the bombing of our Muslim brothers in the Middle-East”.
Mr. Robinson-Young denied this, and claimed: “At first he was very conversational and said that six months ago he would have voted Ukip”.
“When I asked him why he would no longer vote for us he said that he was fed up with my government portraying Muslim people in a poor light”, and the call then descended into a “torrid of abuse”.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.