A woman in the UK who told another woman her dog was attacking her because it “doesn’t like Muslims” was convicted of racially aggravated harassment.
Fiona Connolly made the offensive remark when her dog ran up to another woman, Candice Legister, and chewed at her dress as she walked through Little Wormwood Scrubs Park in Chelsea, southwest London.
Speaking at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Legister said, “I said ‘would you please keep the dog away from me?’ She laughed and said no because my dog doesn’t like Muslims. I said to her ‘how dare you’.”
“I explained to her that I was a Christian and this had nothing to do with the matter,” she continued.
The day after the encounter with the dog, Legister met Connolly again by chance in Tesco Express in Kensington and asked her if she was sober. To which Connolly replied in an inappropriate manner.
However, Connolly denied the allegations and said she has a “half-Muslim, half-Catholic” daughter. Further, she denied she was racist, despite having convictions for three racially aggravated offences.
“I have lots of mixed culture friends from different religions, she’s making it up,” Connolly said.
Senior District Judge Howard Riddle has found Connolly guilty of racially aggravated harassment during the confrontation in Tesco on last July 15, although he cleared her of religiously aggravated harassment the day before.
“In the circumstances I am satisfied that she did say that my dog doesn’t like Muslims. The only reference to religion in the evidence that I heard is that the dog doesn’t like Muslims,” said Judge Riddle.
“That in itself may or may not be an offensive comment but it isn’t a threatening comment in its own right. On that basis I’m not sure that the religious element is made out,” he added.