The teenage victim of a hate crime in Croydon was this week was identified as Recker Ahmed, a 17-year-old Kurdish Iranian.
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Recker was waiting at a bus stop with two friends outside The Goat pub in Croydon, south-east London, on Friday night when he was confronted by a gang of 30 people.
Up to 10 of them chased him for around 100 yards into an estate and left him with a fractured spine and brain haemorrhage.
This is Recker:
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Detective Inspector Gary Castle, from Croydon CID, says:
A number of them approached the victim as he waited at a bus stop with two friends outside The Goat public house in the Shrublands.
It is understood that the suspects asked the victim where he was from and when they established that he was an asylum seeker they chased him and launched a brutal attack. He sustained serious head and facial injuries as a result of this attack, which included repeated blows to the head by a large group of attackers.
A number of people came to the aid of the victim as he lay unconscious and injured following the assault.
Two friends of the victim managed to escape the attackers and suffered only minor injuries. There are no other reported injuries.
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Five defendants (three pictured above) appeared in the dock at Croydon Magistrates Court on Monday, four of them charged with violent disorder and the other with violent disorder and causing grievous bodily harm. So that’s something. Since the story broke, six more people have been charged, bringing the total number of accused to 13.
Reker remains in a south London hospital. His condition is described as serious but stable, and is not believed to be life-threatening, but he will be “scarred for life”.
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Just an absolutely horrific story on so many levels. Racial tensions are obviously pretty high lately, but of course that’s never a reasonable excuse to beat the crap out of a total stranger at the bus stop.
I would much prefer to be blogging about chimpanzees throwing poop into old ladies’ faces, but if you can recognise either of two men in the photo above, you know what to do.
