Racist abuse hurled at Burnley shopkeeper

A shopkeeper was racially abused by a drunken youth who threatened to ‘smash up’ the store when asked to leave.

Kyle Stuart Turner, 27, pleaded guilty to criminal damage to a police van and racially aggravated threatening behaviour towards retailer Muhammed Saad at Blackburn magistrates court.

Saad, who runs the Lyndhurst Road Convenience Store in Burnley, was asked to call his “Taliban” friends by Turner when the retailer and his brother asked him to leave to the store. He then repeatedly spat in the back of the van whilst being transported to the police station. Police said they had to do a deep clean of the van.

“The defendant kept on saying he was a gypsy and would call his boys to come down and smash the shop up,” Lancashire Telegraph quoted Janice Vallance, prosecuting, as saying.

“When Mr Saad called the police the defendant called him a grass. The whole incident was caught on CCTV which included audio and revealed the racist comments about the Taliban.”

Saad’s brother was working at the store when Turner, of Lime Street, Clitheroe, entered the store. Saad intervened after Turner refused his brother’s initial request.

He later told the police that nothing similar had ever happened to him in his 10 years in the UK.

Turner’s solicitor, Jonathan Taylor, said his client had gone in to the shop to ask them to stop serving his alcoholic mother with strong cider which was threatening her life.

“He went to this particular off-licence on more than one occasion and asked them to please stop selling his mother bottles of White Lightning strong cider,” Taylor said.

“It is the cheapest alcohol she can get hold of and it is having a detrimental effect on her. The sales continued and he accepts that on this occasion he lost his temper.”

“He accepts losing his temper and making reference to the Taliban and knows he should not have done that.”

Turner was remanded on bail for the preparation of a pre-sentence report.