East London: ‘Muslim bully attacked teenage couple in Upton Park for cuddling’

From the London Evening Standard and the Newham Recorder

A Muslim “bully” grabbed a schoolboy by the throat and threw him to the ground for hugging his girlfriend in the street, a court has heard.Michael Coe, 35, of Devenish Road, Greenwich, spotted the two 16-year-olds cuddling on the pavement in Wilson Road, Upton Park, while driving.

Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay told Southwark crown court the April 15 incident “started as unpleasant bullying with religious overtones” and swiftly became an assault.

Coe was driving along Wilson Road, East Ham, when he spotted the young couple standing together. “The victim was, and is, a schoolboy…They were standing on the pavement doing what some 16-year-olds do some of the time, cuddling each other in the street”, said Mr Polnay.

Coe stopped his car and said: “Let that schoolgirl go.” Mr Polnay said the boy objected, telling him they were both 16, and Coe told him: “How would you like it if your sister was cuddling?”

Coe allegedly asked if the couple were Muslims – which they are – but they denied it because they were “worried what this defendant would do if they said yes”.

“At which point the defendant said: ‘Why am I wasting my time with you if you are not Muslim?

There followed an exchange of words, during which this defendant said something insulting about his girlfriend, calling her a whore.”

The boy replied: “don’t call my girlfriend a whore”, said Mr Polnay, at which time Coe allegedly “moved from unpleasant bullying to someone in the street to something that is quite simply an assault.”

Coe, currently on trial accused of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and battery, was said to have grabbed the boy by the throat, causing him to black out, before he woke up bleeding on the floor. When passing schoolteacher Boutho Siwela tried help the couple, Coe allegedly attacked him too.

Coe denies the two charges, claiming he assaulted the 16-year-old boy in self-defence. The trial continues.

I thought he looked familiar; then I was reliably informed that Coe is an associate of Anjem Choudary. Say no more.