A 39-year-old man from Galashiels who desecrated a mosque by attacking it with strips of bacon, has been jailed for nine months.
In April, Douglas Cruikshank, along with a teenage girl, had denied behaving in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause fear and alarm in the early hours of January 31 last year, when along with another person, they wrapped bacon around the main door handles of the Central Mosque in Edinburgh’s Potterrow and threw bacon into the premises.
The Crown claimed the offence was racially aggravated.
During the five-day trial, a security guard at the mosque, 34-year old Usman Mahmood, told the jury: “I was surprised if a person did it for a joke. It is against our culture and religion. We do not eat pork or even touch it. I felt very bad seeing this meat in my sacred place. It was very disturbing.”
Appearing for Cruikshank, Mark Harrower, reminded the Sheriff that his client had offered to plead guilty to the offence in June last year if the racial aggravation was removed, but The Crown had refused this.
“As a result of that, matters dragged on. Mr Cruikshank had no option but to proceed to trial because of The Crown’s stance,” he said.
He added that Cruikshank had been drinking heavily for 48 hours before the raid on the mosque, continuing: “He thought his actions were a joke at the time, but has expressed empathy that it was unpleasant for the witnesses at mosque.”
The Sheriff accepted that Cruikshank had tried to plead guilty and told him that if he had been found guilty at trial he would have sentenced him to 13 months, but given his plea to the amended charge, he reduced that to nine months.