'Immediate nick, no questions!' Fury erupts as war memorial vandals dodge jail
Adeem Ahmed and Amaan Tariq, both 18, and a 17-year-old youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were given community-based sentences.
There has been outrage after three teenage vandals who daubed 'Free Palestine' on a treasured town's war memorial escaped jail.
Adeem Ahmed and Amaan Tariq, both 18, and a 17-year-old youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were given community-based sentences for graffitiing the monument in Rochdale.
The trio targeted the cenotaph on November 7 last year just days before the annual Remembrance Day when Britain pays its respects to war dead who have fought and died protecting the nation in two world wars and other conflicts.
Ahmed and Tariq, both from Rochdale, and the 17-year-old pleaded guilty to criminal damage but were due to face trial this month after each denied the damage was racially aggravated.
However, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) later discontinued the trial "on evidential grounds" and earlier this month they were sentenced to the referral orders and also told to pay £140 in compensation, £85 court costs and a £26 victim surcharge.
Sharing news of the sentencing on the social media platform X, GB News presenter Martin Daubney said war memorials need complete protection and that those disecrating them should get "immediate nick, no questions".
Mr Daubney wrote: "We need to give War Memorials the highest legal protection in the land. Any desecration equals immediate nick, no questions. They are as important as any religious building in the land."
The news presenter added that in a similar case involving a man urinating near, but "not on" a police memorial, the person was given an "immediate 14 days in jail".
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Commenting on the case another person replied to Mr Daubney's post saying: "What a joke. No justice there. No lesson will be learned."
Another person added: "Where is the deterrent? Where is the punishment? Our judges are a joke."
The Manchester Evening News reports at the time of the attack on the monument, Rochdale Borough Council described the graffiti as "totally unacceptable" while Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said it was 'disgraceful vandalism'. Local residents said it was 'disrespecting those who had died'.
Tariq and the youth also pleaded guilty to the theft of spray cans and paint brushes from B&M Bargains in Rochdale. The defendants' parents attended the hearing last November when pleas were entered at Manchester Magistrates' Court.
When District Judge Joanne Hirst previously fixed the trial date she told the teenagers: "You have pleaded guilty to a very serious offence.
"Desecration of a cenotaph is not a normal case of criminal damage. War memorials are generally expected to be treated with respect.
"You might be interested to know that more than five-and-a-half million Muslims died in the Second World War fighting for freedom.
"Be under no illusion that the sentence will be serious because of the serious nature of the desecration of cenotaphs."
