Cleared curry house boss tells of taunts on Facebook
One in eight shops empty as spending power wanes
A CURRY house boss cleared of ABH after throwing chilli in a customer’s eyes was forced to close his restaurant when business collapsed.
Kamrul Islam was acquitted over the clash with David Evans, who had complained about “rubbery” chicken at the Prince of Bengal in Tonypandy, Rhondda.
The jury of three women and nine men took three hours and 45 minutes to find Mr Islam not guilty at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court.
“The restaurant is gone,” the 47-year-old said. “I closed it down and someone else has taken it over.”
He had run restaurants in the Rhondda for 20 years. But after the incident “business dropped to zero”.
“It’s the customers I miss,” Kamrul said. “We used to know them and we used to treat these people like family.
“We used to work seven days. We did not ever have to go out and socialise because people would come to us. We were there for 20 years but we are never going to see a lot of those people again. That is the hardest part.”
Kamrul was subjected to racist taunts on Facebook after the incident.
One Facebook user said he “should be kicked out of your country”.
One, misspelled, post said: “You don’t deserve a place in the Untied Kingdom! You should be sent home!”
Another wrote: “Pack up and go back from where you came.”
Kamrul said: “Social media feedback stayed in my mind, even though I tried to ignore it. People were saying, ‘Send him back home’. But back home where? I have been in this country for 27 years. I’m a stranger now in Bangladesh.”
He said he had only spent five days there in the time he had lived in the UK.
Others defended him online.
“Some people would say, ‘Back home where, Pentre is ONE in eight shops on Wales’ high streets now stands empty, as the number of shoppers turning their backs on town centres in favour of retail parks continues to grow, latest figures show.
Data from the Welsh it?’” Kamrul said. “It’s tough, but that is life. It’s unfortunate.”
After the case Kamrul said he was “relieved” at the outcome and that he had been “confident that the British system would find the right answer”.
“I had the common sense to know what happened in there, that is what I was telling myself,” said Kamrul, who lives in Pentre with his wife Tanjila and their son Ziaul, 12.
“I was telling my solicitor that there was no way that I was guilty.”
The court heard he had acted in self-defence after Mr Evans, of Tonypandy, followed him to the kitchen.
Kamrul told the jury Mr Evans clenched his fist in the doorway and was shouting before he threw the chilli powder.
Mr Evans was taken to hospital, where a saline drip was used to clean his eyes. He was found to have suffered burns where the spice landed on him.
Kamrul is now planning to open an air conditioning business.
“I have always had a mind for engineering,” he said.
“So I did a short course in air conditioning. I’ve been setting up the business from my home already.”
His new venture is called Quantum RAC Engineering.
“Because of the case I held it back. I have to get a few things sorted out and then I can concentrate on that.”
Despite missing his old trade, his brush with the law has turned him off it.
“If I can survive from the air conditioning engineering I am never going to go back,” he said. “If there was a million pound out there I would never go back.”
Kamrul also plans to enter politics.
“I would like to become a councillor if I can get a seat for Labour,” he said. “That is something that is in the future.” Retail Consortium shows that the town centre vacancy rate for Wales was 12.5% in January, up from 11.7% in October and a return to the level it was in January last year.
This is above the average vacancy rate for the UK, which dropped to 9.5% in January from 9.6% in October.
Meanwhile footfall – the number of people visiting high street shops and shopping centres – declined by 1.7% in January year on year in Wales.
It was the second month in a row that footfall had declined, although January’s figures were an improvement against December’s fall of 2.6%.
The 2.8% high street decline footfall in is more than 7% adrift from the 4.3% growth in January 2017, while shopping centre footfall continues to languish at 2.5% down last month following on from a drop of 5.7% in January last year.
In contrast, activity in retail parks continues to grow, with a shift in footfall from 1.1% up in January 2017 to 1.9% up this January, despite furniture and household appliance sales in January being the worst of all 13 categories.