Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Video evidence as far-right pair deny racial harassment
The leaders of the far- right national group Britain First will learn their fate next month, after standing trial this week for religiously aggravated harassment.
Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen appeared before Folkestone Magistrates’ Court accused of harassing individuals not directly involved in a case against four men, who were later convicted of gang-raping a drunk 16-year-old girl above a pizza shop in Ramsgate.
Golding and Fransen, the figureheads of the organisation, were initially arrested in May last year over a campaign revolving around the trial, which was being held at Canterbury Crown Court.
They both denied all the charges against them.
Evidence shown to the court was made up of videos featuring Fransen, who was being filmed by Golding, trying to confront those who she thought were the rapists.
The 31-year-old is shown shouting “you dirty monsters” and “filthy disgusting Muslim b*******” and encourages those inside to come out to meet her face-to-face.
She is also seen banging on the shop windows of 555 Pizza.
Speaking from behind a screen in court, Jamshed Khesrow –who was in the shop at the time – said: “I was so scared, I did not know what was going to happen.
“I’ve been in England for 17 years and never have I been scared like this.”
Mr Khesrow described how he hid at the back of the shop away from the view of the “very aggressive” Fransen.
Fransen stated she was “not an aggressive person”, saying her campaign was not racial.
She said that “doorstepping is a legitimate method of reporting” and said: “I think I have a duty
to raise the profile of these issues.
“My intention was to speak to them and ask them why they carried out such an atrocious act.”
Another video showed Fransen confronting one of the rapists, Tamin Rahmani, his brother, and his barrister outside Canterbury Crown Court.
Rahmani’s brother, Faiz, told the court he saw himself on the Britain First website incorrectly identified as Shershah Muslimyar, one of the men who was later convicted of rape.
In another video shown to the court, Golding, 36, said how being arrested and charged only makes Britain First stronger.
He said: “We can be shot, stabbed, bombed, but we will carry on with great determination. Not in a billion years are we going to surrender.
“We are in this to the death for as long as humanly possible. We will never surrender to police persecution.”
When being examined in court, Golding was asked if words like “filthy Muslim rapist” are correct terms to use politically.
He answered: “Sometimes. I have heard worse, including in the House of Commons.”
Golding, who said his role as leader of Britain First has resulted in him receiving a number of death threats, repeatedly made clear that his role in the confrontational videos was purely to be the cameraman.
He denied that Fransen’s choice of words were aggressive and said they were “pretty normal in a political sense”.
Speaking outside the court on Tuesday, Golding said: “How many more times do we have to say we are not racists, it doesn’t even come into it.
Fransen said: “I am certain I can convince anybody I’m not a horrible racist, because I’m genuinely not.
“It’s a shame when people make those allegations.”
The outcome of the case will be heard on March 7.