36 letters of vile and offensive racist hate

| Wednesday, 1 February 2006 Source: News and Star, Cumbria

A TAKEAWAY owner bombarded with racist hate mail has vowed not to be driven out by the bigot who was yesterday jailed for nine months.

Derek Potts put what a judge described as 'vile and offensive' notes through the letterbox of the home of Mrs Asma Khatun, owner of the Lazeez takeaway in Blackwell Road, Carlisle, late at night on August 21 last year.

The 36 pieces of paper – some bearing the logo of the British National Party – included racist insults and threats of violence.

Speaking last night, Mrs Khatun told the News & Star she was determined to stand up to racist bullies and she was pleased justice had been done.

"I am never going to give up," she said.

"Why should I leave town because people are scaring us?"

Judge John Phillips said it had been his unfortunate duty to read the messages Potts had left at Mrs Khatun's front door or pushed through her letterbox. They included scribbled notes bearing such messages as "Feel safe? I know where you live" and "Smell burning? What's next?".

Carlisle Crown Court heard Mrs Khatun took the threats so seriously that, despite having a panic alarm installed, she was frightened of being left alone at night.

She said she and her husband had feared for their lives and were afraid to leave their home for days after the incident.

But in a statement to the police she said defiantly: "No-one is going to make me feel like this in my own home. I am not going to move out and I am going to try to live life as normally as possible."

In mitigation, barrister Malcolm Dutchman-Smith said Potts, a 32-year-old father of three, had "dabbled in the politics of the National Front" but, even though he still failed to recognise the unacceptability of his attitudes, felt remorse.

"He has inflicted on his own family embarrassment and shame which they did not deserve," he said.

At a hearing in December last year, a court heard that Potts, from Blackwell Road, Currock, was not the only one involved in writing the notes.

This is not the first time Mrs Khatun has been the victim of racist abuse in Carlisle.

Earlier last summer, she and her family were targeted by racist yobs who smashed the windows of their business and hurled abuse in the street in attacks believed to have been motivated by the London bombings in July.

Potts, from Blackwell Road, Currock, pleaded guilty to distributing writing containing the threat of racially aggravated violence and causing racially aggravated alarm and distress.