Man threatened to blow up Islamic bookshop and 'kill all the Muslims'

Sentenced: David Moffatt, 39, was handed a community order
Met Police
Tom Powell3 August 2017
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

A man threatened to “blow up” an Islamic book shop in north London before telling staff he wanted to “kill the Muslims”.

David Moffatt, 39, has been sentenced after pleading guilty to religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm and distress.

He was wearing an orange high-vis jacket and trousers when he entered the bookshop on Cricklewood Broadway, near Brent Cross, on the afternoon of May 23.

He made violent threats to the Cricklewood Islamic Bookshop and Muslims in general before leaving.

Moffatt was arrested at 11.30pm on the same day after calling police himself to allege that he had been threatened by somebody.

Defending himself during police questioning, Moffat said: “I’m not anti-Muslim, I’m Catholic.”

On Friday, he was sentenced at Willesden Magistrates’ Court to a community order with an unpaid work requirement of 100 hours within 12 months. He was also made pay £620 in costs and a victim surcharge of £85.

Detective Inspector Madeline Ryder, from Brent’s Community Safety Unit, said: "Hate crime is unacceptable and Brent’s Community Safety Unit is committed to tackling hate crime in all its forms, supporting victims and their families and bringing perpetrators like Moffatt to justice."

Hate Crime can be reported through 999 in an emergency, by dialling 101 in a non-emergency, directly at a police station, through the MOPAC Hate Crime app or through community reporting methods such as Tell MAMA for Islamophobic incidents and the Community Security Trust (CST) for anti-Semitic incidents.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in