A 20-strong gang set upon four tree surgeons in Rochdale, England, calling them “white bastards” and cutting off a teenage worker’s hand with an axe.
27-year-old Habibur Rahman, of Milnrow Road, Rochdale, gathered the mob after the workers had stopped him from abusing an elderly woman, the Manchester Evening News reports.
Rahman, incensed that he had been “disrespected” on his “territory”, tracked the four workers to the property they were working on in the rape gang blighted city, blocking them in by parking his car across the driveway while the mob approached armed with weapons including a claw hammer, knives, machetes, a knuckle-duster — and the fateful axe.
“I am not going to let them leave,” Rahman said from his car, abusing the workers as “white bastards” who were in his “country”, the court heard.
“They’re going to get what they deserve. They’re going to get stabbed.”
One of the workers, who was just eighteen years old, interposed himself as a “peacemaker”, “completely defenceless” — only for the member of Rahman’s mob armed with the axe, Mohammed Awais Sajid, or ‘Skinny’, to suddenly slam the weapon into the young man’s chest, smashing through his ribs and collapsing a lung.
“[Sajid] followed up with a 360 degree spin of his arm, an act which was doubtless employed to enhance the speed and devastation of the attack,” recalled prosecutor Tim Storrie.
“The blow itself was aimed at the victim’s head. He was dimly aware at this stage of the weeping of blood down into his waistband. He was turning his body, attempting to leave the scene.
“Through good fortune, he said he realised the axe was above him aiming for his head. He put his arm up to defend himself and the blade essentially severed his arm at the wrist.”
The dreadful incident was only brought to a close by one of the tree surgeons revving a chainsaw at the mob to scare them away — although not before Rahman had shattered another worker’s nose with a knuckle-duster.
Their teenage victim had to be airlifted to hospital for life-saving emergency surgery and reattachment of his hand — which will never be restored to its full function — which has been followed by another five operations.
Incredibly, Sajid, of Moss Cottage, Kings Road, Rochdale, was acquited of attempted murder. MEN reports that he was instead convicted of a “section 18 wounding” and handed an 18-year term — although there is no indication that this was anything other than a standard determinate sentence, meaning he will almost certainly be automatically released on licence at the halfway point, if not sooner.
Rahman himself was given a four-and-a-half-year term, while brother Zillur Rahma and mob member Arsan Ali each received four-year terms for conspiracy to commit violent disorder — although again, it is standard practice in England that such terms are only served behind bars until their halfway point.
Nine other people investigated in relation to the case were released without charge.
Strangely, there is no mention in local news or a Greater Manchester Police force statement of the authorities treating the crimes of Rahman and his compatriots as racially aggravated — which would attract tougher sentences — despite his statements about the victims being “white bastards”.
Indeed, Rahman claimed he had received racist threats from the tree surgeons — claims the judge dismissed as a “pack of lies”.
“The fact that a mob could be mobilised so quickly and so heavily-armed is clear evidence in my judgement that you are each associated with gang activity,” the judge said, adding that none of them had shown “a shred of remorse” for the attack — strong words which belie the weak sentences he handed down.
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