JUDGE: ‘YOU’D PROSECUTE FOR RACE HATE IF THE VICTIM WAS BLACK’

A judge accused the Crown Prosecution Service of ‘double standards’ today (Weds) for failing to prosecute a drunk who allegedly racially abused an Irish cathedral worker.

District Judge Michael Snow suggested Jonathan Steed would have been charged if his victim had been black or eastern European.

The 43-year-old asked Noel Doyle where he was from before branding him an ‘Irish bastard’ and telling him to ‘f*** off back to Ireland’, the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.

Slamming the decision to charge him with threatening behaviour instead of a more serious, racial offence, an exasperated District Judge Michael Snow asked: ‘This is not racially aggravated?

‘If it was Jamaican or Latvian, it would be racially aggravated,’ he said.

‘We have got to be careful we don’t have double-standards with these things – it’s pretty appalling language.’

The episode took place after Steed drunkenly staggered into Westminster Cathedral, at around 2pm on September 19 and began yelling obscenities.

Steed, whose previous convictions include assault, drunk and disorderly, cannabis possession, and threatening behaviour, then kicked Mr Doyle’s mobile out of his hand as he tried to summon police to the cathedral.

Remanding Steed in custody until September 29 for a psychiatric report to be prepared, Judge Snow said he was ‘in a place of worship, shouting and swearing at the top of his voice and causing a disturbance.

‘Anybody using that as a place of worship would have been deeply offended,’ he said.

Steed, of no fixed address, admitted threatening behaviour.
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