COMMENT: Disgusting attack on helpless victim left me utterly appalled

It starts, as stories often do, on a Saturday afternoon, in a pub. One of the very many in which I like to drink in and around the Black Country, to be precise. It was, for once, a very pleasant day, sunny and bright ­– still bitterly cold, mind you, but a very nice atmosphere in which to while away a few hours with one's friends.

The beer garden was pretty packed, with most of the faces being at least vaguely familiar, in that way that pub regulars become. Not friends as such, but maybe people you would greet with an 'alright fella?' or a 'how do?' and then exchange vague pleasantries about the issues of the day. Good people. Most of the tables contained one or two such people, that I'd call acquaintances.

Not very disgusting so far. My own Saturday afternoon usually consists of: Show up, meet friends, drink beer, mock each other mercilessly, smoke cigarettes, go home. On this occasion we were doing exactly that, when, a few tables over, a table upon which were sat a good dozen people of various ages, a couple of whom I vaguely knew, erupted into activity, very loud at that. It started with a single clarion call of: "OY OYYYY!"

Immediately, a few of the older people at the table were on their feet, hollering rowdy messages.

"I didn't know the circus was in town!"

"Someone's off to a fancy dress party!"

They then started making a peculiar noise, which I can best describe as being the one that I used to make as a child, playing Cowboys and Indians, if I had been selected on the Red Indian (I know that's not the PC term now, but we weren't to know back then) side. You know the one I mean – a high-pitched, ululating whoop, usually achieved by putting one's hand over one's mouth and then removing it and repeating several times.

Now, anyone who drinks anywhere in the Black Country of a weekend will tell you that you can get some eccentric types wandering its thoroughfares: Oddly-dressed, unique of gait, or just very drunk. So my group got up and decided to have a little rubberneck and see which particular peculiar fellow was provoking all this excitement. I looked over the hedgetop and my heart sank.

It was a Muslim woman, in full, carrying two heavy-looking bags of shopping.

My friends and I sat back down, shaking our heads, smiling nervously. The shouting from the other table continued, though, louder with every effort, and darker in tone to boot.

"Have you got a vest on under there?" (Pete's note: Presumably referring to a suicide bomber's vest.)

"Take your gloves off and show us your hands!"

"Allah u f***in' akhbar!"

And one which, I'm afraid, disgusted me so much that I'm going to warn you before I repeat it.

"How many times today have you been raped?"

By the time it subsided, and they sat back down again, congratulating themselves on their ebullient display of patriotic wit, I'd estimate that woman would have been a couple of hundred yards down the road, that cretinous cacophony still ringing in her ears.

I wonder what they thought they achieved, those whoopers and hollerers, that afternoon in the sun? I imagine, from the size of the woman's shopping load, that she had a family. Maybe she had small children, begging the question: If they had been with her, would these people with which I occasionally share oxygen, have behaved in the same way?

I imagine they thought that they were striking a blow against extremist Islam, and that, in hectoring and abusing a mother doing her grocery run, they were somehow fighting the good fight against IS. I imagine they felt like heroes, and went to get themselves another pint.

And what about that lone woman, about whom they knew precisely nothing, other than the particular creed by which she lives her life? I wonder what she thought about them, about us? If she had looked across the road at that foamy-mouthed, hate-filled pub table of grown men, barking their bile – I'm guessing she did the smart thing, and didn't – would she feel that we are all part of the diorama of British life facing her?

And then, what about her kids, swarming around her legs as she unloaded the shopping with a heavy heart? As they grow up, will she teach the same children that Britain is a good place to live, one of tolerance and cultural respect? Or will she just teach them to quicken their steps when they walk past places like that pub, look to the floor, fear, avoid, ignore, despise?

Obviously, there's another point to be answered here, which is that, if I, who witnessed it, found it all so disgusting, why didn't I do anything to intercede? I could have taken issue with them, pointed out the inherent wretchedness of haranguing a lone mother going about her business. I could have reported them to the police.

Well, for one thing, I was well and truly gobsmacked by the foul ogreishness of it all. For another, I knew full well that if I remonstrated, I would probably have ended up with a pint over my head, while it was still in the glass. But mainly, I knew that there was no damnable point in even trying. There are people with whom you just can't reason, for whom any debate is already over. To them, every Muslim is a bad Muslim, and if they're going to stay here, then we're going to make their life as grimly, attritionally wretched as we can. Some bloke they vaguely know who occasionally drinks in their pub calling 'foul' on their activities isn't going to change them one iota because shouting at women in burqas has become as mundane for some as chewing on a packet of peanuts. I guess it feels like a victimless crime, when you can't see the anguish on their face.

I can tell them that all they achieved, is to inch us all infinitesimally further away from the thing we surely all desire, a world worth sharing. Because while there is ostentatious hatred like that, in our streets and parks and snoozy Saturday sunshine pubs, then the hatred will be reciprocated on the other 'side' too, curdling, growing, solidifying.

And this, of course, plays right into the ultra-extremist Islamic narrative, that sees us all duking it out in the war to end all wars. If you opt to see all Muslims as inherently bad, and act accordingly on this belief, then in a not especially roundabout way, you're backing the IS vision of how we're all going to end up.

If you really want to strike a blow for Britain, its ways and its values, against the extremists, then here's an idea: Be nice. Be kind. Be tolerant. Be everything that your perceived enemy is not. Because if it's hatred and moral absolutism against which you think you're fighting the good fight, shouting abuse at a total stranger seems an odd way to go about it.