A piece in today’s print edition of The Times, but not in the online edition, emphases ours:
A retired university lecturer has been convicted of racist hate crimes after reducing a German academic to tears by telling her to “go home”.
John Smart, 72, twice abused Birgitta Hoffmann, 49, while walking past her home on the affluent Pownall Park estate in Wilmslow, Cheshire.
Dr Hoffmann, an expert in Roman military history, told Stockport magistrates’ court that she was gardening in April last year when she saw Smart walk past. “I did what I always did and said ‘good morning’ and usually I would expect people to say it back. But instead this gentleman stopped and said ‘you’re that German, why are you still here, go back’.” She then had a crying fit and called police, she said.
Two months later she was on her driveway when Smart asked her: “Are you still here?” She was later found crying on her bed by her husband. [J4MB: You have to feel sorry for her poor husband, being married to a Special Snowflake.]
Smart, a former mechanical engineering lecturer at Manchester University, denied all wrongdoing, telling the court: “I knew of this lady but I’ve never spoken to her. I don’t remember in detail what I said to her. I accept words were exchanged.”
He was convicted of two charges of racially aggravated harassment and fined £1,290, ordered to pay Dr Hoffmann £250 compensation and issued with a restraining order banning him from contacting her for 12 months. [J4MB: Hopefully, the day after the order expires, he’ll stand on the pavement outside her house and frown at her, inviting a charge of racially aggravated frowning.]
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