MOSQUE MAN’S POISON PEN WAR
WEBSITE CREATOR’S CAMPAIGN OF MALICIOUS ACCUSATIONS EXPOSED
A FORMER mosque trustee used a community website he created to falsely accuse members of extremism, sexual grooming of children and adultery.
Javed Javed, 65, set up a website for the Madina Mosque in Cardiff in 2007 and then began using it to wrongly accuse others of criminal, immoral and improper activities.
Sentencing him at Cardiff Crown Court, Judge Jeremy Jenkins noted he caused “considerable distress” to the victims.
The court heard Javed, who was a trustee at the time, created www.madinamosquecardiff.org.uk to publicise the mosque’s work.
Peter Donnison, prosecuting, said the defendant lost his position following a dispute and started posting offensive material about members of the mosque community.
Detective Constable Gareth Childs, from South Wales Police, gave him a warning notice about his behaviour in August 2013, but he continued to publish the posts.
The court previously heard he accused people of child sexual grooming, holding terrorist ideologies, bigamy and adultery.
At that hearing, prosecutors said Javed accused some community members of being part of a sect involved in “penis worship”.
Mr Donnison said Javed published images that were “grossly offensive” to mosque members, including pictures of pigs and alcohol.
Giving evidence at a hearing in October, one of the victims described his allegations as “a complete pack of lies”.
The court heard he called her “mischievous”, implying she was having affairs.
She said she felt upset, humiliated and degraded, adding: “It made my blood boil.”
The woman said people stopped attending the mosque as a result of the allegations and she felt Javed had “made a mockery” of the community.
Javed accused another complainant of being “an extremist”, seeing prostitutes and being a bigamist.
Asked how the allegations made him feel, the man said: “It upset me a lot. I did not want to read it because it was too disgusting.”
He told the court the allegations were “completely and utterly untrue”.
PC Ben Gwyer arrested Javed in July 2015 and seized his work computer and personal laptop.
In interview, Javed admitted he was responsible for the website and argued he was exercising his right to free speech.
He accepted the posts were shocking, but denied they amounted to harassment.
Asked how he would have felt if those things had been written about him, he replied: “If the contents are true, there is nothing wrong with it.”
He was convicted in his absence at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court in January 2017 of three counts of harassment.
The defendant was fined £150 and ordered to pay £50 in costs. The website was closed down and restraining orders were imposed.
He appealed against the convictions in October last year. Giving evidence from the witness box, he said: “What I have written is the truth.
“What I see is what I write. It is in the public interest – the public should know what is happening. It has to come out.”
Judge Thomas Merfyn Hughes QC, with justices Jeffrey Goodman and Teresa Triggs, found there was “no truth whatsoever” in any of Javed’s allegations.
They ruled the posts were deliberately defamatory, hateful and malicious and described his conduct as “wholly unreasonable”. He was ordered to pay £800 in costs.
Mr Donnison said Javed signed a copy of the order imposed by the magistrates’ court, but breached it just days later by setting up a new website.
The court heard he began posting similar material, this time partially disguising the complainants’ names with stars.
Prosecutors said it was still “clear” who he was referring to.
In a series of victim personal statements read out in court, one community member said he found the posts “deeply distressing”.
Another individual said he felt “shocked” and “horrified” when his picture appeared on the website.
A further victim stated he felt humiliated and was worried people were talking about him and might believe the allegations.
Javed, from Charnwood Drive in Pontprennau, admitted six counts of breaching a restraining order. He refers to himself as a Quranic poet and used to run a women’s clothes shop.
His previous counsel Tim Evans said he had been “whistle blowing” for many years and had written hundreds of letters to the police and politicians about alleged criminal activity at the mosque.
Mosque teacher Mohammed Sadiq, 81, from Lake East Road, Cyncoed, was jailed in July 2017 for 13 years after being found guilty of six counts of indecent assault and eight of sexual assault.
His son Mahmood Sadiq, also from Cyncoed, was 35 when he was jailed in July 2000 for rape.
Another community member Taher Majid, from Ty Draw Road, Penylan, was 36 when he was jailed for 10 years in September 2008 for his part in a £250m VAT fraud.
The defendant’s new representative Neil Treharne said Javed wanted to see offenders brought to justice, but accepted he had “overstepped the mark”.
He said Javed, who has no previous convictions, has dialysis three times a week and described his health as “desperately unstable”.
Judge Jenkins commended the complainants for their dignity and said: “People were hurt by what you posted.”
He imposed an eight-month jail term, suspended for 18 months, and added to the restraining orders. An order was made for Javed to forfeit ownership of the website.