Man stuffed Quran down hospital prayer room toilet

A man who stuffed pages of the Quran down a hospital prayer room toilet and wrote anti-Semitic graffiti in his police cell has been found guilty of hate crimes.

Ibrahim Iqbal, 36, was convicted of two counts of religiously aggravated criminal damage and one count of criminal damage at Leeds Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

The court heard Iqbal defaced several Qurans, 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.

Iqbal, of no fixed abode, will be sentenced on 16 February.

The CPS said Iqbal had smashed a framed Islamic scripture during his first offence at the hospital prayer room in November

He then returned a fortnight later, on 9 December, and deliberated stuffed miscellaneous items down the drains to cause a blockage.

After trying to access the prayer room again the following day, he found it locked as a result of the damage he had caused and he was later arrested by West Yorkshire Police.

Luke Hopkinson, senior crown prosecutor for CPS Yorkshire and Humberside, said:

"Ibrahim Iqbal carried out a deliberate and sustained campaign of hatred, targeting both Muslim and Jewish communities with his actions.

"I hope today's conviction demonstrates the CPS's commitment to tackling religiously aggravated hate crime, and reiterate how we will always seek to prosecute those who target others because of their faith where their conduct strays into criminality."

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