Newcastle man sentenced for threatening to cut boy's neck in mosque hate attack

A man has been jailed after he threatened to behead and blow up Muslims attending an event for young people.

Alexander Bolam intimidated families as they left Heaton Mosque in Newcastle, gesturing to slit a five-year-old's neck.

Bolam, of Holystone Crescent, High Heaton, will now spend the next four years in prison after pleading guilty to racially aggravated assault, racially aggravated damage and making threats to kill at Newcastle Crown Court.

He will also be subject to an indefinite restraining order and an extended license period of three years.

Newcastle Crown Court heard people had been living in fear since the incident in February this year.

The court heard Bolam had previously posted on social media indicating a hatred for followers of Islam and may have harboured a grudge because a man he believed his former partner had cheated on him with was a Muslim.

On 6 February this year, matters came to a head when Bolam was hanging around the mosque as families collected their children, engaging with them as they left.

Becoming aggressive, he made death threats, bending down nose-to-nose with one children and making a hand gesture across his neck, threatening to kill him.

Rachel Glover, prosecuting, said when Bolam started talking to one of the victims, he initially claimed he was not racist and wanted to know about the religion.

Making a number of comments, he went on to say: "I'm going to cut your heads off, I'm going to behead you all, I'm going to blow you all up."

He then turned to the five-year-old boy and gestured that he would cut his neck before urinating on the door of the mosque.

Bolam was arrested a short time later on Shields Road in an intoxicated state.

In a victim statement, two brothers who had confronted Bolam said the incident had changed their lives.

They said: "We live normal and peaceful lives and had an honest belief he was going to kill us after the threats.

"Since the incident, we are living in fear and the actions have completely changed our lives. The terror we felt when he bent down towards (the five-year-old), nose to nose and doing a hand gesture and making the comments he was making caused a great deal of trauma to all of us.

"Growing up in Heaton we have a sense of community and Bolam has completely ruined it and taken away the safe place for the community and to make it worse he urinated over a place of worship.

"Bolam claimed he spoke for the British public and it was his country and he said it was the right thing to do. That's not the case. The community generally were concerned for the behaviour and he doesn't represent them."

They added that previous online posts on social media by Bolam show he has ill-feeling toward the Muslim community and added: "We believe he is a racist and his disgraceful actions have changed everybody's lives and it had a devastating effect."

Bolam, who had 26 previous convictions, was sentenced to four years in prison with an extended licence period of a further three years.

Judge Julie Clemitson also imposed an indefinite restraining order banning him from attending, or loitering near, any mosque in England and Wales.

She told him: "Your behaviour has had an effect on the entire community, not just at that mosque but of the surrounding community in Heaton.

"Families were coming and going from the mosque to collect their young children who had been attending inside.

"This whole episode was made substantially more serious by the presence of children, not just those two little boys but all of the families coming and going from the mosque.

"The threats you uttered were bound to cause other people fear when targeted at them because of their religious beliefs in the very place they gathered to practice their religion."

Judge Clemitson labelled Bolam urinating "a filthy act of desecration" and said his behaviour had a "profound impact".

Matthew Purves, defending, said: "He is ashamed and finds it disgusting, the way he behaved. All he can do is seek to apologise for what he has put them through.

"He was in a drunken stupor and engaged in the most horrific manner with insults towards wholly innocent people going about their lawful, happy lives. He will have terrified them, he recognises that."

The court heard he has mental health issues and a difficult upbringing and references from neighbours and his employer showed a "different side to his character."

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