British injustice

Black brutes who killed grandfather outside mosque sent down for a total eight years... but could walk free in months. Such habitual violent offenders should have been put away for good

Harrowing images of the moment a Muslim pensioner was killed outside a mosque by two members of a 'happy slapping' gang were released by appalled police yesterday.

They show how deeply religious Ekram Haque, 67, was struck to the ground in front of his three-year-old granddaughter Marian after being ambushed by the delinquent pair.

Little Marian can be seen trying to comfort her grandfather, who suffered irreparable brain damage and died a week after the assault last August.

The attack happened only minutes after Mr Haque and his granddaughter had attended prayers in the mosque for the holy season of Ramadan.

Yesterday a court order was lifted, allowing Mr Haque's killers - Leon Elcock, now 16, and Hamza Lyzai, now 15, both of Tooting, South-West London - to be named.

But to the disgust of the dead man's family, gang leader Elcock was locked up for only four-and-a-half years and Lyzai for three-and-a-half years.

Mr Haque's son Arfan, 35, attacked the Crown Prosecution Service for dropping murder charges against the pair. He said: 'Justice has not been served. I have been let down. The CPS really need to buck up their ideas because people are getting away with murder. My father died. It's a disgrace.'

He added that his daughter Marian still has nightmares about the attack. The Old

Bailey heard that Elcock and Ugandan-born Lyzai approached Mr Haque from opposite directions and both landed blows to his head, which felled him.

The pair pleaded guilty to manslaughter and also admitted their parts in other assaults. Brian Altman, QC, prosecuting, said the series of 'wanton and cowardly' attacks were 'deliberately targeted on middle-aged and elderly men for fun and for the defendants' own pleasure'.

He said of the attack on Mr Haque: 'It is a case of two youths creeping up on a defenceless, elderly and vulnerable man minding his own business and deliberately attacking him with the obvious intention to do him some harm.

'The two blows did not themselves inflict serious injury. It was the all too familiar tale of a blow stunning or rendering Mr Haque unconscious by which he fell backwards, hitting the back of his head, suffering a complex fracture leading to secondary brain injury of which he died a week later.'

The death of the retired care worker was the culmination of a series of 'happy slapping' incidents recorded on mobile phone cameras.

Only 20 seconds before the fatal assault on Mr Haque the two killers, then aged 14 and 15, had assaulted two other men in the same road with a 14-year-old friend.

Elcock and the 14-year-old, who cannot be named, had also attacked a married elderly couple five days before, kicking and stamping on them in their own home. A series of 'happy slapping' clips were found stored on the 14-year-old's mobile phone. The gang regularly filmed the attacks under the name 'Lane Gang Productions'.

A short clip shot by the unnamed 14-year-old showed Elcock hitting a bus driver who was talking on his mobile phone during a rest period.

The 14-year-old had been permanently excluded from school and was being educated at a centre for unruly children. Elcock and Lyzai had been due to face trial for murder-but the prosecution accepted pleas to lesser offences after reviewing the evidence.

In addition to manslaughter, Elcock - who at the time of Mr Haque's death was on police bail for a previous happy slapping attack - admitted four counts of causing actual bodily harm.

He has spent almost a year in custody already and will be freed once he has served two years and three months, half the term he received. Lyzai, who also admitted two counts of assault, has served almost a year in custody and will be freed within months.

Their friend, now 15, admitted four counts of causing actual bodily harm and was given a six-month detention and training order. He has spent 324 days in custody and will be released immediately.

Judge Martin Stephens, QC, told the killers: 'As a result of your so-called bit of fun he [Mr Haque] was deprived of a full and contented life, and his family of a devoted, inspiring and beloved father and grandfather.'

Mr Haque was born in Calcutta and moved to Belfast in search of work in 1972. He met his wife there and they moved to London in the 1980s. He worked in textiles, later becoming a warden in a home for the disabled. He retired last year.

His son said: 'My father was a very loving individual. He gave his time to anybody and everybody. It is tragic he died in the way he did, he was such a peaceful man.'

Original report here. (Via POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)




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