A member of the so-called “Muslim Patrol” gang which harassed people in East London in an attempt to “impose sharia law” has apologised to his victims and told Sky News that he has been reformed.
Jordan Horner was part of a vigilante gang between December 2012 and January 2013. The 21-year-old was actively involved in targeting couples holding hands, people drinking alcohol, and women who the group deemed to be dressed “inappropriately.”
He was jailed for 17 months in December 2013 after pleading guilty to charges of assault and of using threatening words and behaviour. Now on licence from prison, he says he thinks about the harm he caused “on a day-to-day basis” and now rejects “extremism.”
“I apologise to the individuals that I did harass and attack. Somebody who makes mistakes never recognises they’re making a mistake until they analyse what they’ve done after they’ve done it.”
Horner told Sky News how he felt he needed to physically implement his religion rather than practise it on a spiritual level – propagating it on others. “Now I’ve moved away from that and I’ve studied my faith correctly and I understand that these are the type of actions that are completely incorrect.”
Horner also admitted that his actions could have caused Islamophobia – and for the past year, has been working with an agency which claims to have reformed 20 extremists in the past six years.
Usman Raja, who runs the Unity Initiative, says the organisation’s goal is to tackle the “mistranslation” of Islam by using the teachings of respected scholars.
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“Muslim patrols” involved groups of young Muslim men who patrolled streets in East London from 2013 to 2014. Early that year, videos of their activities, filmed by members of the patrol, were uploaded online. These showed hooded members of the patrol confronting passers-by and demanding that they conform to Sharia law.
They targeted prostitutes, people drinking alcohol, couples who were holding hands, women whom they considered to be dressed immodestly, and harassed others whom they perceived as being gay.
Five men were arrested in January 2013 as part of an investigation into the gang, and three were given jail sentences on 6 December 2013.
The Muslim East London Mosque community condemned the patrols as “utterly unacceptable” and in response to the “Muslim Patrols,” the far-right organisation Britain First has established “Christian Patrols.”
The gang’s videos were later removed from YouTube in January 2013 because they contravened the site’s policies on harassment, bullying and threatening behaviour.
The arrested patrollers were members of The Shariah Project which is thought to have been “strongly linked” to Anjem Choudary’s group Al-Muhajiroun. Several media reports have since identified the Sharia patrols as part of a network of followers of Anjem Choudary.
Choudary himself has condoned the Sharia patrols, has spoken in public before several supporters known to take part in these patrols and praised as “commendable” the actions of the convicted members of the Sharia patrol.
