Muslim convert ‘attacked schoolboy for cuddling his girlfriend’
An Islamic convert jumped out of his car to knock out a Muslim schoolboy for hugging his girlfriend in the street, a court heard.
Michael Coe, 35, attacked the 16-year-old near Upton Park tube station in East Ham and then threw teacher Boutho Siwela to the ground when he tried to intervene.
Coe asked the cuddling couple if they were Muslim before calling the girl a whore and grabbing the boy around the neck, it is said.
Jonathan Polnay, prosecuting, said: ‘It is about what started as, we would say, unpleasant bullying with religious overtones in the street.
‘It was followed by an attack by this 35-year-old man on a 16-year-old schoolboy followed by a further assault on a teacher, a nearby bystander, who went to come to his aid when he saw what was going on.
‘The first one is more serious than the other, we say, because it caused some injury.
‘It was an older man completely unjustifiably losing his temper and laying hands on a 16-year-old boy.’
Mr Polnay said the teenager and his girlfriend were on the pavement cuddling when Coe pulled up in his car.
‘They had the misfortune, we would say, of all people to drive by was this defendant.
‘They are strangers to each other.’
Coe pulled over and said: ‘Let that schoolgirl go,’ the court heard.
He added: ‘How would you like it if your sister was cuddling?’
The teenager assured Coe that he and his partner were the same age, jurors heard.
He told Coe his sister ‘Does what she pleases.’
Coe then asked the pair if they were Muslim and they lied, claiming they were not, the court heard.
He added: ‘Why am I wasting my time with you if you are not Muslim?’ the prosecutor added.
Coe called the girl a whore and when they boyfriend took offence he grabbed him around the neck.
‘That’s the last thing that he remembers because next thing he woke up on the floor and he was bleeding,’ Mr Polnay said.
The prosecutor described the alleged attack as ‘unpleasant and utterly unwarranted’.
‘This is a grown man on a child – on a 16-year-old.’
At this point Mr Siwela intervened having seen the incident, jurors heard.
‘As he sees the defendant, Mr Coe, get back into the car he thinks: ‘I had better take a photograph’.
‘The defendant was not having that because he gets out and he comes over to Mr Siwela saying give me that phone.’
Coe then grabbed the teacher and threw him to the floor, jurors heard.
As he drove away and Mr Siwela and another witness noted his number plate.
Coe accepts pushing the boy but claims he was acting in self defence.
Coe, of Devenish Road, Greenwich, denies one count each of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and battery in Wilson Road, Upton Park.
The trial continues.
ends
