Maryam Mir successfully argues no case to answer in unusual racially aggravated public order trial

Maryam represented a senior professional charged with a racially aggravated public order offence. The unusual incident involved a white, and visibly so, police officer claiming he felt racially abused by being called “monkey boy”. Despite strong and detailed written representations by her instructing solicitors on the correct interpretation of s28 Crime and Disorder Act precluding any conviction, the police and CPS rigidly applied a policy that meant the case proceeded to trial. Following Maryam’s cross-examination of the officer about his lack of membership of any racial group protected by the legislation, and his concession that the words had little impact on him as a man with many years policing experience, Maryam successfully made a submission of no case to answer and the case was thrown out. Costs were awarded to her client who had endured a lengthy period of stress awaiting this outcome. The case marks a failing by the police and CPS to logically apply the law to particular facts when prosecuting misconstrued allegations of racially aggravated offending and thereby incurring unnecessary costs to the public purse. 
 

Maryam was instructed by Ed Jones and Matthew Hardcastle of Kingsley Napley LLP