MR JUSTICE JOHNSON Approved Judgment Hegab v Spectator “Someone in Leicester must know who these Hindutva cowards are. They attacked a few people and were chanting against Pakistan on the Melton Road. We all know that they were really chanting against Muslims. These scum need to be caught and justice needs to be served! #Leicester #Hindutva.” 18. On 1 September 2022, Leicester Police said that there was no evidence that there had been chanting of “death to Muslims”. 19. There are reports that in early September 2022 eggs were thrown at the homes of Hindu families in Leicester. 20. On 4 September 2022, Pakistan beat India in another cricket match. There was further disorder in Leicester involving gangs of masked men. 21. On 5 September 2022, a young Muslim man was attacked in Leicester by a large group of Hindu men. There was extensive social media discussion of the incident. CVB was critical of the (lack of) police response. 22. On 9 September 2022, CVB tweeted about an alleged assault of a “Muslim lad” by “2 Hindu guys”, saying “he managed to beat them both up & escape. STAY ALERT.” In reply, someone said, “Stop spreading lies and rumours!” and asked the police to “stop this guy from spreading unnecessary rumours without quoting sources and valid information he will inflame tensions.” In reply, Leicestershire Police said, “we urge people to only share information they know to be true and avoid speculation.” 23. On 11 September 2022, a video was published of an Imam interviewing his nephew who is a traffic warden and who said he was attacked by Hindus in a car when he tried to give them a parking ticket. This was widely shared. On 30 September 2022, the police said that the report was false. 24. A further story that emerged at about the same time was that three Hindu men had kidnapped a Muslim girl. There was extensive social media reporting of the story. It was also covered in the local newspaper and a national newspaper. CVB tweeted: “CONFIRMED: An incident took place this morning not far from a college in #Leicester. A Muslim teenager was approached by 3 men, but she ran away into the school. The college & the police are aware of it and the family have been given an incident number by @LeicsPolice. … I met the family and the girl this evening. The girl is very shaken, but she is ok alhamdulillah. They’ve reported the incident to the police. Hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of this and the people behind it are caught.” 25. The police subsequently stated that the reporting was entirely false and that no offence had been committed. They warned about the consequences of sharing information on social media.

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