Member of mob who kicked pub door locked up for 20 months

A teenager who kicked a door during efforts to storm a pub wrongly believed to contain English Defence League members has been handed a 20-month custodial term.

Haris Ghaffar knew that others within a mob wearing balaclavas which surrounded Birmingham’s Clumsy Swan pub were armed with knives, the city’s Crown Court was told.

CCTV captured the 19-year-old, of Thornhill Road, Handsworth, being the first of several youths to kick a wooden door which had been barricaded from inside using furniture, as terrified customers sheltered inside.

The footage showed dozens of protesters, some carrying Palestinian flags, gather near the pub in the Yardley area on the night of August 5, before a drinker standing outside was punched and kicked.

Prosecutor Mark Phillips told the court on Wednesday how the pub attack occurred against a background of unrest caused by false rumours that members of the English Defence League were planning to “target the Muslim community” in the Alum Rock and Bordesley Green areas.

Mr Phillips said: “He (Ghaffar) says he thought the EDL were actually in the pub because people kept saying it.”

An unauthorised protest involving a large number of men and youngsters began outside an Islamic centre at about 4pm, the court heard, and moved to a roundabout on Belchers Lane, before a car and a bus were attacked and “boarded” by those involved in disorder.

The court was told staff at the Clumsy Swan had removed stools from an outside area after being alerted that “a march” was heading towards the pub.

CCTV footage of attempts to gain access to the pub showed offenders taking flying kicks at glass doors and repeatedly kicking a wooden side door.

Inviting the court to pass a suspended sentence, defence barrister Jonathan Barker said: “He (Ghaffar) had just turned 19 and he got swept up in the emotions that were high on that particular day.

“Without thinking, he made the decision to kick the door to the public house on, it seems, four or five occasions. He at no stage engaged in the violence which occurred (with the drinker who was outside the pub).”

Ghaffar pleaded guilty to violent disorder at a previous hearing.

Sentencing Ghaffar, the Recorder of Birmingham Judge Melbourne Inman KC said that although no one inside the pub was hurt, “serious fear and distress” was caused, while ambulances were diverted away from the city’s Heartlands Hospital.

The judge said: “Sadly, this is another of a number of cases the court has had to deal with which arose from civil unrest following the tragic events that occurred in Southport.

“In this case, as is clear, there was rumour, wholly inaccurate as it transpired, that an extreme right-wing movement were intending to gather in areas where, as is well known, there is a significant multicultural community including many Muslims.

“Sadly in this case, as with many others, the social media information on various chat groups and websites was utter rubbish. There was no such protest.”

The judge said of CCTV of the pub attack: “It was a depressing sight – utterly mindless violence and mob violence against a public house that had nothing to do with anything – with people inside who were just out enjoying themselves and no doubt from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds.”

He told Ghaffar: “You and others acted as a mob. One man tried to stand up – he got punched. Others charged in trying to kick the door.

“You went out looking for trouble, put a mask or a disguise on and intended, if you could, to get away with it.”

The EDL, founded in 2009, is now widely considered to be defunct.