Father fined for perverting the course of justice (From Watford Observer)
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Mohammed Riaz for taking blame over racial comments made by son
10:18am Monday 29th October 2012 in News
A Watford father who tried to take the blame for his son's racial remarks to neighbours has been fined £500.
When police were called to the dispute in Langley Way, Watford, Mohammed Riaz, 56, claimed he had made the comments and not his son, a police officer in The Met.
On Wednesday Riaz appeared for sentence at St Albans crown court, having earlier been found guilty by a jury of perverting the course of justice.
Passing sentence on the father, Judge Michael Baker QC told him it was clear he and his family had been engaged in a long running row with their neighbours.
He said neither side was prepared to "give an inch" and it was against that background that the son had uttered the remark.
But with the police then involved said the judge, the father has "sought to take the blame and made a false statemen"t.
Judge Baker then branded Riaz "obstinate, foolish and dishonest".
In addition to the fine, Riaz was ordered to pay £500 towards the prosecution costs.
Comments(4)
crazyfrog
says...
10:50pm Mon 29 Oct 12
garston tony
says...
8:35am Tue 30 Oct 12
Also far too often racism is seen as being white against whoever but this just highlights that racism exists in all cultures, backgrounds, races, nationalities etc.
The current hoo ha in football about racism is possibly very valid but didn’t the elder Ferdinand 'like' a comment on twitter that called Ashley Cole something that itself was racist? The amount of times I've had racists comments made against me by non whites I've lost count of but the racism issue seems to centre around eradicating it from the white population and ignoring the fact it is an evil that is in all cultures and nationalities.
In this day and age it is so sad that we still make judgements about other people based on the colour of their skin, we're all human beings and are all equal.
LSC
says...
4:28pm Tue 30 Oct 12
Sad indeed, but I doubt it will disappear anytime soon. Humans seem to have this in-built trait of needing to belong to something and dislike everything else.
Skin colour is just the most base (and stupidest) manifestation of that.
Everton fans hate Liverpool fans, but they both join together to hate Manchester. Catholics don't like protestants and both are shunned by muslims.
Even back in school there used to be organised fights with the nearest one to us. I don't know why. Most of the kids who took part in that sort of thing would be the first to say they HATED their own school.
But they simply couldn't help themselves. Humans sometimes just lack logic.
garston tony says...
12:52pm Mon 29 Oct 12