Choudary pal hit Muslim,16 for cuddling girl on street
THE bodyguard of hate preacher Anjem Choudary was jailed yesterday for assaulting a Muslim teenager just for cuddling his girlfriend in the street.
Michael Coe, 35, an armed robber who was part of Choudary’s inner circle, knocked out the 16-year-old he spotted while driving past a bus stop.
The 6ft 1in thug was sentenced to two years and four months by a judge who said he acted like ‘a self-appointed enforcer’.
Coe, who accompanied Choudary on his inflammatory protests, wanted to force his ‘religious views on others who were doing nothing morally or legally wrong’, added Judge Michael Gledhill QC.
Coe had swaggered into the dock grinning and waving at his legal
‘Self-appointed enforcer’
team after arriving 30 minutes late. Southwark Crown Court heard that he accosted the teenagers in East London, demanding to know if they were Muslims before calling the girl a ‘whore’.
Coe grabbed the boy by the throat, threw him against a wall and then kicked him twice in the head while he was unconscious.
A passing teacher recorded Coe on his mobile phone, giving police vital evidence, and was also thrown to the ground by the 16st gym fanatic.
Choudary was jailed for five years in September for supporting Islamic State. Yesterday’s sentence is the latest for his band of followers for trying to enforce strict Islamic codes of behaviour in so- called ‘Muslim Patrols’.
Coe’s unprovoked attack on April 15 follows a long list of serious offences, meaning he has spent around 12 of the last 19 years behind bars for assaults, burglary, robbery and violent disorder.
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay said the boy was left terrified of older men after waking up from the attack dazed and feeling sick in hospital.
The court heard he has since split up from his girlfriend. She had wept in court as she recalled: ‘I was screaming and crying. I just saw the blood coming from his head. I don’t get why religion was brought into it. It had no relevance.’
The court heard Coe was convicted of religiously-aggravated harassment for a similar incident in 2013.
Naeem Mian, defending, claimed Coe ‘misunderstood’ the situation and thought the boy was abusing the girl. But Judge Gledhill said Coe had picked on ‘young people doing what young people do in every town and on every street in the country’.
Coe, of Greenwich, south- east London, was convicted of assault causing actual bodily harm and battery in a trial in August.