Shomrim member sentenced

A FORMER Stamford Hill Shomrim member has been sentenced for falsely accusing teenagers of a robbery in what police called a “despicable deception”.

Michael Scher, 32, admitted perverting the course of justice on the first day of his trial at Wood Green Crown Court last Wednesday.

Yaakov Nowogrodski, 27, another fromer member of the strictly Orthodox volunteer group, was charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and false imprisonment over the same incident but he failed to attend court and is believed to have fled the country. A warrant was issued for his arrest. Scher received a five-month prison sentence, suspended for two years. A third man, delivery driver Thiago Alves, 38, received an eight-month sentence.

The court heard that, on July 3, 2017, police received calls stating that Shomrim had detained two youths for robbery in Stamford Hill.

When police officers arrived at the scene, they were told that two males, aged 13 and 15, had tried to rob Alves, a delivery driver, of his moped, surrounding him, pushing him and demanding the keys to his vehicle.

Alves, Scher and Nowogrodski all repeated these allegations in sworn statements to investigating officers.

The youths were arrested and held by police for 16 hours.

But detectives obtained CCTV footage that showed the boys were not near Alves and did not try to steal his moped.

Detective Sergeant James Leeks said: “Why these men decided to fabricate this case may never be explained.”

Rabbi Herschel Gluck, president of the Stamford Hill Shomrim, said the behaviour of the two Shomrim members was “a serious aberration” adding that the organisation “deeply regret[s] the distress caused”.