The London police have arrested an 18-year-old man for viciously assaulting two elderly Jewish men last week. The Wednesday night incident, caught on a security camera, shows a man repeatedly kicking and punching two Jewish shop-owners outside their bakery.
The victims, who wore Orthodox Jewish attire, were closing their shop after a day’s work in Stamford Hill, a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in inner London. “The shocking video shows the pair locking up their shop in north London, when they are approached by a passer-by who launches an astonishing attack, knocking one to the floor and causing both to lose their kippah,” the UK’s Daily Mail noted.
The elderly victims were hospitalized after the assault. “Shomrim, a local volunteer police force, said one victim sustained a broken nose and fractured wrist in the attack. The other man suffered bruising and injuries to his eye and wrist,” UK newspaper the Evening Standard reported Friday.
Most media reports have been silent on the attacker’s identity and motives. The suspect taken into police custody has been identified as Malaki Thorpe, an 18-year-old London resident. He had illegal weapons, the police report said.
British weekly The Jewish Chronicle reported the details of the unprovoked antisemitic attack:
Police have arrested a man after he was filmed violently assaulting two Orthodox Jewish men in Stamford Hill.According to footage released by Shomrim, the two men were exiting a building when a figure dressed in black walks past. The attacker then says something to two men who turn to face him. The attacker then begins striking the men repeatedly, with enough force to knock off one of the men’s kippot.The man then follows them continually punching the men until they fall over. According to Shomrim, the men were taken to hospital by Hatzola and released later the same evening.Malaki Thorpe, 18, of Fairview Road N15, is due to appear in custody today at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court charged with two counts of racially aggravated assault causing actual bodily harm and one count of possession of an offensive weapon.
Wednesday’s attack is not an isolated incident. In recent months alone, the Jewish neighborhood of Stamford Hill has witnessed a series of antisemitic attacks and incidents. UK weekly The Jewish Chronicle reported on January 5 that a veiled Somali woman was “arrested after throwing stones into the playground of a Jewish school” in Stamford Hill. On August 18, a 64-year-old man was beaten unconscious on his way to a Stamford Hill synagogue. As BBC noted, the “same day, a 30-year-old man was struck on the head with a bottle, and a 14-year-old boy was attacked” — both violent antisemitic attacks.
The surge in violence against Jews is not limited to the Stamford Hill neighborhood. “The first six months of 2021 were the worst on record for anti-Semitic crimes in the UK – with 1,308 incidents, according to the Community Security Trust,” the British TV network ITV reported last week. “This is an increase of 49% from the 875 anti-Semitic incidents recorded in the first half of 2020.”
The British media, just like mainstream media in other Western countries, is complicit in the surging wave of antisemitic crimes as they cover up the motives whenever immigrant perpetrators are involved.
Last week, UK state media regulator Ofcom opened an investigation into the BBC after evidence emerged that the broadcaster may have falsely accused the Jewish victims of ‘islamophobia’ in an antisemitic attack that took place two months ago. An independent probe showed that the British national broadcaster falsely reported that Jewish teens uttered “anti-Muslim slurs” when attacked by a group of men in central London.
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