Man who put Quran in hospital toilet vapes in court

A defendant wore sunglasses and vaped when he appeared in court from prison to be sentenced for hate crimes - before storming out of the room.

Ibrahim Iqbal, 36, was convicted of two counts of religiously aggravated criminal damage and one count of criminal damage at Leeds Magistrates' Court on 4 February after he stuffed pages of the Quran down a hospital prayer room toilet and wrote anti-Semitic graffiti on a prison cell wall.

During a sentencing hearing at the same court earlier, Iqbal dismissed his solicitor for "negative energy" and said he would represent himself.

He abruptly left the proceedings when details of his crimes were relayed to magistrates during an application for bail.

The court previously heard Iqbal defaced several Qurans, - the Islamic holy book - by tearing pages out, setting them alight and ramming them into a sink and toilet at a multi-faith room at St James' Hospital in Leeds, in November last year.

After being arrested in December he scrawled an anti-Semitic slogan on his cell wall with a crayon, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

During Monday's hearing magistrates were told Iqbal had also allegedly assaulted a police officer on 25 November, kneeing them in the groin while in handcuffs.

He was later accused of criminal damage for tearing up a police code of conduct book while in custody.

Iqbal claimed he had no knowledge of what he had been convicted for, but his solicitor told the court he had refused to leave his cell at HMP Leeds on the day of his trial.

The defendant, who appeared via video link and gave his address as Middleton Road in Belle Isle, said he had "no choice" but to forgo legal representation, accusing his Legal Aid-funded solicitor of "negative energy".

He threatened to sue both his former solicitor and the courtroom's legal advisor.

The case was adjourned until 6 March for sentencing to allow a probation report to be prepared, with Iqbal remanded in custody until then.

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