A racist has been sentenced to six months in jail for racially abusing and attacking Muslim schoolgirls in Sheffield in December last year.
Wesley Cooper, 41, from Hackenthorpe, pleaded guilty to three charges of racially aggravated harassment against a 14 year old girl and a 13 year old girl, and assault by beating against a 13 year old girl.
The magistrate ordered that the victims should not be named.
The attack first emerged after a video of it went viral on social media and outrage ensued after the police only gave a caution to a 44 year old female who was involved in the incident.
Two of the victims then went public with their story and their lawyers are now challenging the decision to only caution by South Yorkshire Police.
Cooper appeared at Doncaster Magistrates Court via videolink from prison where he is already serving a two and a half year sentence for another unrelated offence. He bit his nails throughout the hearing and shook his head and sighed as sentence was passed.
John Kavanagh, prosecuting, said Cooper and his partner had been drinking in a pub on December 4, 2019 prior to the attack. At the pub they argued with staff and were asked to leave before Cooper told the staff: “You’ve got a fucking Paki working here, you’ve employed a Paki.”
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Kavanagh said that Cooper and his partner then took a bus home at around 4pm which was full with schoolchildren and other members of the public.
An individual with dogs then got on the bus and one of them licked the leg of one of Cooper’s victims which set off a commotion when she screamed. Cooper then said to her: “Look at you, you fucking pussy, look at you, you fucking slag.” When his victim got upset he told her: “Shut up you fucking fat nigger.”
Several witnesses on the bus heard Cooper use the racist abuse and confirmed that he had started the incident.
The children then started shouting and a violent incident ensued which spilled out from the bus and onto the street. Police were called and Cooper was arrested.
Richard Jepson, defending, acknowledged that Cooper should not have used racist language and that his words had upset a lot of people. But he said that his actions were not pre-planned and his partner had been at the forefront of the trouble rather than him.
Jepson said Cooper only became involved physically in the incident to calm things down and did not assist or encourage the violence perpetrated by his partner.
The magistrate sentenced Cooper to six weeks jail for one racially aggravated public order offence and ten weeks for another. He also sentenced him to jail for ten weeks for common assault which was non-racially aggravated. This means he will have to serve six months in total.
Reacting to the sentence, the mother of two of the victims, Racheda Ali, told 5Pillars that she was “very disappointed” with the verdict which was “not good enough” and that Cooper should have got at least two years.
She added that she would not rest until the 44 year old female involved in the incident is arrested as one of her daughters “still has headaches from the attack she suffered.”
