Nadine Osman

A football fan from Salisbury was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and ordered to pay almost £1,000 for religiously aggravated harassment of a police officer on June 28. Laurie Kavanagh was sentenced for calling a Sikh police officer a ‘Muslim c*** with a turban’ and threatening to rape another officer following a football match on November 28 last year.

Laurie Kavanagh, 37, attended the match between Chelsea and Manchester United but shortly after leaving Stamford Bridge, he became drunk and aggressive. Southwark Crown Court heard how the defendant was initially asked to leave the area before police were forced to tackle him to the ground. Kavanagh had shouted, “I’ll bring a pack of pikies around your house and rape you.”

He kicked out at officers and shouted at a police sergeant that he would ‘send his boys round his house’ to kill the officer and his family. He boasted about his £50,000 a year salary as an estate agent and told officers he paid their wages.

When he was put in the back of a police van he then started verbally abusing PC Harjod Premi, calling him “the Muslim c*** with a turban”.
PC Natalia Burke told the court in a victim impact statement, “I was the only female officer on the scene and the verbal abuse was focused on me.

It disappointed me that my gender was at the heart of the issue and was used against me in this way.”
Kavanagh, representing himself, said, “I accept that my behaviour was completely unacceptable, and I am extremely remorseful. I have made the biggest mistake of my life and I have severely compromised my career. I apologise to you and the police.”

Kavanagh admitted two counts of threatening and abusive behaviour, and one of religiously aggravated intentional harassment. Recorder Corraine Sadd ordered Kavanagh to stop drinking alcohol for 60 days and wear an alcohol monitoring device.

He must also pay £150 in compensation to each police officer he abused – £450 in total – plus £535 in court costs.
Following the court hearing, Kavanagh’s now former employers Myddelton and Major said that the estate agency had not known about the incidents.

Philip Holford, managing partner at Myddelton and Major, said: “Everyone here is appalled and deeply shocked by the former employee’s repugnant actions; his employment contract was terminated as soon as we were made aware of the court facts and sentence.