Appeal of acquittal dismissed for religiously aggravated disorderly behaviour

C was raised in Turkey and sought asylum in the United Kingdom in 2022, subsequently applying for refugee status. He disapproved of Turkey's shift from being a secular state to becoming more Islamic. On 13 February 2025, C travelled to the Turkish Consulate at Rutland Gardens in Knightsbridge, central London, arriving at approximately 14:00 with a copy of the Qu'ran. His conduct was captured on video footage. He set fire to a copy of the Qu'ran whilst holding it aloft and shouted "Koran is burning", "Fuck Islam" and "Islam is the religion of terrorism". The pavement was sparsely populated and C did not initiate interaction with members of the public.

Moussa Kadri emerged from a nearby building, called C a "fucking idiot", said he would "fucking kill" him, then returned with a knife. He chased C into the road, making slashing motions, then kicked and spat at him. A delivery cyclist also kicked and spat at C. Police arrived at approximately 14:25. C explained he had been exercising his democratic right to protest. Both he and Kadri were arrested. Kadri was later convicted of assault and possession of a knife. In interview, C stated he was an atheist, did not have prejudice against Muslims who did not use violence, and believed burning the Qu'ran was his right. C was convicted in the Magistrates' Court of religiously aggravated disorderly behaviour but acquitted on appeal to the Crown Court. The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed by case stated to the High Court.

The Director of Public Prosecutions submitted that neither of the Crown Court's conclusions was rationally open to it. The only conclusion reasonably available on the evidence was that C's conduct was "disorderly" within the meaning of the legislation. Burning a book on a central London street is "an intrinsically disorderly act". The deliberate burning of a sacred text while holding it aloft and using "abusive and inflammatory language" was a deliberate act of provocation. The evidence plainly showed that C's behaviour stirred up real emotional disturbance and upset qualifying as "harassment, alarm or distress" and was obviously "likely" that people seeing and hearing what C did would experience such emotions.

The Crown Court erred in seemingly adopting the approach that it was "for the Crown to establish that prosecution is a proportionate response".

C submitted that the Crown Court was perfectly entitled to reach the conclusions it did, which plainly met the test of rationality. The point-by-point critique amounted to no more than disagreement with its conclusions. No arguable error of law had been identified.
 

Held

Appeal dismissed.

The Crown Court was entitled to conclude that C's conduct was not "disorderly" and not "likely" to have caused harassment, alarm or distress within the meaning of section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. The acquittal of C by the Crown Court was upheld.

The Crown Court's legal analysis was correct. It cited all relevant authorities and reflected the principle that section 5 language must be given a suitably narrow construction compatible with Article 10 of the Convention protecting freedom of expression.

The Crown Court's citation of Abdul and others v DPP regarding proportionality was a narrow semantic point of no substantive merit and immaterial because the court never concluded it had to assess proportionality and never reached the reasonableness defence under section 5(3).

The test for this appeal is whether the Crown Court's conclusions were rationally open to it, applying the standard articulated by Lord Reid in Brutus: "whether their decision was unreasonable in the sense that no tribunal acquainted with the ordinary use of language could reasonably reach that decision". The Crown Court was entitled to consider as relevant factors: whether conduct was targeted at a person; the location and ordinary expectations about behaviour there; the number of people involved and in the vicinity; time of day; duration; reactions of those present; and what those reactions suggested about what was "likely".

The Director of Public Prosecutions' submissions were "essentially no more than counter-arguments offering a different perspective, or a different approach to the facts and circumstances". The court left no material factor out of account and its reasoning contained no logical flaw. The conclusions were rationally open to it.

Reproduced with permission of Reed Elsevier (UK) Limited, trading as LexisNexis.