Six months in prison for racist Stuart Birnie’s antisemitic tirade
Londoner Stuart Birnie has been sentenced to six months in prison, beginning immediately, at a sentencing hearing at Wood Green Crown Court today.
On 17th December 2015, Mr Birnie saw a Jewish pedestrian and crossed the road to confront him, shouting: “Oi you go f*** yourself, I’m going to kill all the Jews.” He then yelled that “Jews produce too many kids” before repeating that he would “kill you and all the Jews.”
Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol deployed immediately and tracked Mr Birnie until police officers arrived to arrest him.
Mr Birnie told probation officers that the “situation in Stamford Hill is epidemic” as though Jews are a plague.
Miss Recorder Spiro said in delivering the sentence that the victim “was targeted purely because he was Jewish” and was left “frightened and heartbroken”.
In a statement, Jacob Weiss from Stamford Hill Shomrim said: “I welcome the immediate custodial prison sentence, it sends out a strong message that such behaviour is wholly unacceptable. Mr Birnie went out of his way to target his victim solely because he was Jewish.”
After a spate of light sentences, this is a very welcome result. The decision to imprison Mr Birnie for his actions sends a strong message that antisemitism carries severe consequences. We commend Stamford Hill Shomrim for their swift response to ensure that this racist was brought to justice.
Regrettably such convictions are rare due to reluctance on the part of the Crown Prosecution Service to take action against antisemites. While 2015 saw the worst level of antisemitic hate crime on record, we only know of 12 cases of antisemitic hate crime that the Crown Prosecution Service prosecuted, out of a total of 15,442 hate crimes prosecuted that year.
Court Update: 'Stuart Birnie' convicted of anti-Semitic threats in #StamfordHill has just been sentenced to 6 months immediate imprisonment pic.twitter.com/RvGUW8Qkuh
— Shomrim (Stamford Hill) (@Shomrim) October 28, 2016