A community safety group has complained about the leniency of a punishment for ‘hate crime’, after a teenage boy was fined £20 for putting lit fireworks in the pockets of Jewish pedestrians.
The boy, aged 14, was arrested by the Met for racially aggravated common assault after volunteers from Shomrim – the Jewish voluntary neighbourhood watch patrol – chased and detained him in Dunsmure Road, Stoke Newington, at 8am on 31 January.
The Hackney Youth Offender Panel ordered the boy to pay the fine in compensation and a sentenced him to a year’s referral order.
Moshe Monitz, supervisor at Shomrim in Stamford Hill believes his punishment is too lenient.
He said: “The outcome in this case unfortunately sends out a wrong message to victims – a sense of why bother if justice will not be served.
“The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the Ministry of Justice should consider the impact that a crime has upon its victim and the message it sends to all victims in general.
“There is so much talk about a zero tolerance approach to hate crime, but it is important that it should not be mere words. It is the action that demonstrates how serious the words are.”
A spokesman from the CPS said they could not comment on individual sentences.
Source: Hackney Gazette
