Today, OnlyFans ‘model’ Victoria Thomas Bowen was sentenced at Westminster Magistrates’ Court for throwing a milkshake at Reform U.K. leader Nigel Farage as he left a pub in Clacton earlier this year, days into the General Election campaign. She had pleaded guilty to assault by beating and criminal damage at an earlier hearing.
Farage told the court he “felt humiliated” by the incident and was left fearing for his safety in public. He added he had worried “for some time afterwards that next time it may not be a milkshake”.
Thomas Bowen has been spared jail. Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram handed down a 13-week jail sentence, suspended for 12 months. She must pay Farage £150 in compensation, and complete 120 hours of unpaid work, as well as paying £450 in court costs.
Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram, who handed down the sentence, has a long history of eyebrow-raising rulings and comments, which, like today’s ruling, have often sparked claims of two-tier justice. Here are some of them.
PC James Watts
In 2022, in an unprecedented ruling, he jailed police constable James Watts for 20 weeks for WhatsApp memes mocking George Floyd, the black 46 year-old whose death in May 2020 sparked the Black Lives Matter riots.
“The hostility that [Watts] demonstrated on the basis of race,” Ikram explained, “makes this offending so serious that I cannot deal with it by a community penalty or a fine.” He added: “A message must go out.”
Later, he boasted about this publicly to a group of U.S. students, airing woke talking points about alleged institutional police racism and how he apparently sees it as his role to change this, saying, “We’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
“This was a [former] police officer bringing the police service into disrepute,” he told the College of DuPage in Illinois, in a lecture titled, ‘Diversity in the Judiciary‘. “So I gave him a long prison sentence. The police were horrified by that.”
Lord Wolfson KC, a former Justice Minister, is among those to have suggested that these comments may violate the judiciary impartiality rules which state that “judicial office holders cannot talk about the cases they or colleagues hear”.
Six police officers
Last year, Ikram sentenced six former Met officers for improper use of a public electronic communications network under the Communications Act 2003. The officers each received a suspended sentence of between eight and 14 weeks’ imprisonment and were ordered to undertake community service lasting between 40 and 140 hours.
They had exchanged “racist, sexist and homophobic” messages, and though the WhatsApp groupchat “Old Boys Beer Meet”, was private, Ikram ruled the messages were “offensive to many good people in this country and not only people who might be directly offended”.
While this is an extraordinary way for the law to work, one must note that this ruling is consistent with a recent High Court ruling on how the Communications Act is to be interpreted. The Law Society Gazette explains: “Whether an electronic message is ‘grossly offensive’ within section 127(1)(a) ‘is a question of fact to be answered objectively by reference to its contents and context, and not its actual effect’.” Which is to say, no one needs to have been offended for something to be “grossly offensive”.
Some people send themselves texts as reminders. If a comedian did this over WhatsApp with some of his or her edgier material, and Tan Ikram considered it to be “offensive to many good people”, this could be a crime.
Michael Chadwell’s Boomer meme
One of those officers had pleaded not guilty. Michael Chadwell shared an image showing parrots of different colours and children of different ethnicities, with the words, “Why do we cherish the variety of colour in every species except our own?” Below this was a Facebook comment: “Because I’ve never had a bike stolen out of my front yard by a parrot.”
The image contained no racial slur, nor did it mention any specific ethnicity. But Ikram rejected Chadwell’s argument that it was a joke, (“Dadaist, surreal and a little bit Monty Python”), and convicted Chadwell for the meme’s content alleged racist “implication”. “It’s a clearly racist generalisation and characterisation,” he said, “and caricature of ethnic people.”
“Sarah Jane Baker”
Ikram doesn’t always rule harshly on speech, however. Last August, he heard the case of “Sarah Jane Baker”, a transwoman (i.e., a biological male) who had been out on licence while serving a life sentence for attempted murder, kidnapping and torture. That July, Baker told an audience of trans activists in London, “If you see a TERF, punch them in the fucking face.” Ikram nevertheless ruled that this was not criminal speech, and even appeared to endorse the Trans+ Pride march that day, saying, “you wanted publicity for your cause”.
The ‘paraglider girls’ trio
At a central London pro-Palestine march the week after the October 7th attack in Israel last year, Heba Alhayek, 29, and Pauline Ankunda, 26, had attached images of paragliders to their backs, while Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, had attached one to a sign. Paragliders, as had been reported widely in the media, were how Hamas terrorists crossed the Gaza-Israel border to carry out their barbaric pogrom against Israeli civilians.
The trio were found guilty of appearing to show support for a terrorist group after a two-day trial.
Convicted under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, they faced a possible six months in prison. But Tan Ikram said he had “decided not to punish” the defendants, instead handing the trio a 12-month conditional discharge each.
“You crossed the line,” he said, “but it would have been fair to say that emotions ran very high on this issue.” This reasoning that will strike many as bizarre: the defendants’ apparent glee at the massacre of hundreds of Israelis apparently being mitigated by the fact that, er, they felt it strongly.
It then transpired that, weeks previously, Ikram had liked an anti-Israel post on LinkedIn, adding further question marks to the lenient ruling. He was subsequently disciplined for allowing a “perception of bias” in the judiciary.
PC Perry Lathwood
In May, Ikram found PC Perry Lathwood guilty of assault for handcuffing a black woman who was refusing to show her bus ticket at a ticket inspection. While conceding that “it was not through bad faith”, he said Lathwood had “crossed the line and got it wrong” in this widely publicised incident and fined him £1,500. This would also have cost Lathwood his career as an officer.
In September, however, the judgment was overturned at appeal, and Lathwood’s reputation restored. Rick Prior, Chair of the Metropolitan Police Federation, called the overturned judgment “erroneous and perverse”. He said of the case: “It is my view that this is yet another Independent Office for Police Conduct-led, politically motivated witch-hunt against a decent, honest and diligent police officer who was simply doing his job.”
Many people, looking at these apparent disparities in sentencing, see it as two-tier justice. However, this does not necessarily mean any of Ikram’s rulings are indefensible from a strictly legal point of view. The fact is that a considerable amount of discretion is baked into our legal system. It is in Ikram’s gift to sentence James Watts to prison time for private messages because “a message must go out”. Similarly, a potential judicial review of Ikram’s paraglider girls ruling was dropped after being deemed unlikely to be successful. A scan of the sentencing guidelines doesn’t suggest he necessarily got anything wrong with Thomas Bowen by the letter of the law.
Ikram could, however, have used that discretion to make an example of Ms. Thomas Bowen. Think of all those currently languishing in our prisons for social media offences, less because they had materially contributed to disorder than in order to ‘punish and deter’. In visiting violence on a politician, her ‘milkshaking’ was an attack, not just on an individual political candidate but on democracy itself – but this doesn’t seem to have merited extra seriousness in this case. Instead, as Farage notes, “We now live in a country where you can assault a Member of Parliament and not go to prison.” What message does that send?
Finally, one must note that Ikram is well embedded in the British judicial establishment. He is among contributors to the Equal Treatment Bench Book, which advises judges on how best to uphold the “fundamental principle” of the judicial oath, “fair treatment”. The diversity guidance, which every judge in the country receives on taking office, has employed Critical Race Theory concepts like “systemic” or “structural” racism, “unconscious bias,” and “micro-aggressions”, as well as transgender ideology. When trans-identified males in the dock for sexual offences are referred to by the court as “she”, for instance, courts are following the ETBB’s injunction to show “respect for a person’s gender identity”. Ikram is also currently a year into a three-year appointment to the Judicial Appointments Commission, the body that decides who becomes Britain’s judges. And at the 2022 New Year Honours – i.e., under Boris Johnson – he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for “services to judicial diversity”.
Stop Press: Paul Embery has told GB News that due to cases like these, “We are in danger of the public losing faith completely in the criminal justice system”.
Paul Embery – " We are in danger of the public losing faith completely in the criminal justice system ".
— Patriots Of Britain (@HoodedClaw1974) December 16, 2024pic.twitter.com/F30zCfXjW2
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Judge Tan Ikram….let me guess, a Muzzie supremacist, or Subcontinental with an inferiority complex, with anti white racism, and sundry Marxist theologies to push and embed into ‘law’. He no doubt loathes Farage. Just another DEI hire destroying our country.
Nailed it!
“Paul Embery has told GB News that due to cases like these, “We are in danger of the public losing faith completely in the criminal justice system”.
Let me correct that…
I very much believe that the public have already completely lost faith in the criminal justice system, and a corrupt ex DPP has ensured that this is the case. Realistically who of us has any confidence in what used to be reasonably reliable British institutions?
The judiciary is a joke, the police are a joke, the NHS, uncivil service etc etc. The country is being ripped apart at the seams and Kneel is chief ripper.
I agree. But the fault doesn’t only lie with the Kneeler, though, because it was the Tory vermin who let in millions of our replacements. The fact is our entire Establishment has a death wish which manifests as a desire to destroy the people they rule – us. And since our Establishment seeks its own destruction, we have to aid them in their wish.
You’re right.
How many judges do you think voted Reform? I mean, it’s a no-brainer but it’s because the victim was Farage. Had anyone from the Uniparty had something chucked on them you can bet your bottom dollar the culprit would be doing time. This Only Fans slapper will be feeling smug now, but what is that in the way of a deterrent? It’s pants! What happens if next time it’s some psycho hurling acid or other corrosive substance on him? Remember the loon lobbing rocks at him when he was on the top of that double decker? Judges are a law unto themselves now and everyone can see it, there’s zero proportionality.
Hat tip for the unintended egg pun but Nigel had this comment regarding the decision;
”The man who threw an egg at Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 was found guilty of assault by beating. He went to prison.
Victoria Thomas-Bowen was convicted of the very same crime against me today but was spared jail time.
This is an undeniable example of two-tier justice in our country.”
Realistically we have to get rid of all muzzie judges. Their upbringing alone should disallow any appointments to the judiciary and the reason is simple – these people cannot think British. How can white British citizens expect fair treatment under the law when they are facing judges who cannot possibly understand what it means to be British. Trial by jury allows for a jury of peers and the same right should apply to the judges.
This corrupt so-called judge is an insult to this country. He was born and brought up in Pakistan – if memory serves me correctly – so his background is Pakistani and no amount of education can remove that fundamental flaw. He will still think as a muslim, Pakistani man no matter how many years he has filched a living in this country. He would fit in very tidily were he belongs but that place is not the UK.
No, that’s bollocks all he has to do is apply the law impartially.
And it looks as if this one doesn’t.
Well and courageously said!
Absolutely spot on.
These are some prize prats with power. They don’t give a toss about the lives they ruin such is their adherence to a value system that is pure poison.
Tbf the sentence in this case seems to me proportionate, but custodial sentences for the WhatsApp cases quite outrageous actually disgusting.
I think the charge is absurd- “assault by beating”. Ffs – I’ve seen and experienced “assault by beating” and this doesn’t qualify. A better remedy would be the John Prescott approach.
The WhatsApp people should not even have been charged or even investigated.
You can detect a lot from the stickiness of a complexion, as if the normal channels of expulsion are so full up that it has to come out through the skin.
The MPs are spineless and should have come out together to complain about the lenient sentence. One day they may be facing a nutter who will cause them harm.
And that has already happened, in some cases by people who were known to both the police and to the anti-terrorist types as a threat before they acted against the MPs who were killed.
Guys, we’re talking milkshake, milkshake, and whilst it’s probably not that healthy to drink, it’s perfectly fine to chuck at politicians, even Farage, whom I admire.
Throwing battery acid or bullets is already and quite rightly frowned upon.
There’s no reason to suppose that sending a milkshake-thrower to jail makes anybody safer.
Well said
Rubbish! He just fancies her.
I agree that sending someone to jail for throwing a milkshake would be excessive but it’s certainly not fine, either.
It’s not excessive for assaulting an electoral candidate’s EYES, temporarily BLINDING HIM in the midst of a crowd. If she were a Pakistani Muslim woman in a black binliner, JacktheDog would not be leaping to her defence. He just fancies her, wallowing in depravity like all her customers.
It’s basically the same as throwing a drink at someone in a pub. That’s not exactly good behaviour and often meant to start a more serious quarrel (it certainly was when I was targetted with it¹) but terminating the quarrel and throwing the people out who started it is a much more adequate reaction to that than anything involving the police.
¹ A guy who had already tried to provoke me in various other ways once threw his drink at my face. While I had been ignoring him so far, this started to become a bit rich. I then stepped over to him and methodically emptied my beer over his head. Unfortunately, I had forgotten about his pals. Someone knocked the glasses from my face with a punch from behind. World-stupid as I still was at that time, I instantly dived to the floor in the hope to salvage them (the guy had long since stepped on them). This ended with me groping around on the floor searching for my glasses while the guy kept kicking me in the head until security dragged him out of the door. Nothing further came of that (police was called but I didn’t make any statement and just left to recover from my concussion).
Yes, of course you are right that pub brawls resulting from gentlemanly altercations are an intrinsic part of western culture, like the customers hurling tables, chairs and each other out the saloon doors in the old American cowboy movies.
The porn star’s attack was completely different— a deliberate, calculated physical assault on an electoral candidate who had done her no harm, carrying out his electoral campaign in the democratic constituency. There was no “quarrel”! She was probably PAID to attack him.
You get attacked so often in and around pubs by hostile groups of people that it seems your attackers know you and have it in for you in some way, maybe just because you are a German veteran or something. Are your attackers Third World Ethnics, or Indigenous? There must be some way you could have a peaceful, pleasant drink in a pub without being attacked. Too bad you don’t live near the Surrey Sceptics, who welcome fellow Sceptics to their friendly pub meetings.
Either that, or go to your local with your own gang of German veterans, for a more equitable punch-up.
And on the subject of German veterans, may I draw everyone’s attention to the Greatest Advert of All Time, in my view, especially since Christmas is only a week away:
1914 | Sainsbury’s Ad | Christmas 2014 – YouTube
Now with 25 million views, this magnificent jewel is about the Christmas Truce of 1914, when German & British troops played football together on the battlefield.
I watch it every year, and get choked up every time…
It’s certainly not fine. I’m not Farage and I wasn’t there, but I’ve had stuff thrown at me (snow, eggs) by people in an “aggressive” manner and I certainly don’t think involving the law would have been merited – had I caught up with them I would have been happy with giving them a clip round the ear.
And just exactly how would Nigel have been able to give her a “clip round the ear”, without being universally condemned as a “woman-beater”?
Prescott got away with it but I guess he punched a bloke.
Well exactly, a gentlemen’s animated discussion becoming heated to Pub Brawl Level is normal self-defence and a good way to practice fighting skills, like Neil Kinnock punching someone, Sir Ian Botham punching someone else, Sean Bean defending his lady from the man who insulted her, Tommy Robinson defending his little daughter from the man who tried to assault her, and the late English actor Oliver Reed punching a journalist for insulting his wife.
But that is not the case here.
It was PHYSICAL ASSAULT, attacking an electoral candidate with an unknown liquid in HIS EYES, temporarily blinding him in the midst of a crowd. What if he were a Pakistani Muslim candidate? Or a FEMALE candidate? What would have been the press and judicial reaction then?
She is an Upper Middle Class, Spoilt, Champagne Socialist TERRORIST, probably PAID by Pakistani Muslims to attack him. Stop defending her just because you are apparently a porn fan, while she strutted around flaunting herself with silicone-swollen lips, pouting before the cameras after the verdict that let her off. The “judge” may also be a fan. The whole thing is nauseating.
Given that Farage had already been threatened with an acid attack and presumably the perpetrator in this case did not pre-announce ” Don’t worry Nige, it’s only milkshake” this was a serious assault. How was the victim to know that it wasn’t an acid attack? In a country which actively pursues Non Crime Hate Incidents, a real hate crime is ignored. A cynic might suggest that the target influenced the Judge’s decision
Yes we are, very true!
But had the exact same milkshake been thrown over Starmer, Raynor, Reeves, Sadiq Khan or David Lammy, would the “offender” have been treated identically by that judge?
Most of them should be put in stocks and have rotten eggs and tomato’s thrown at them, for the damage they are enforcing.
Or stabbed in an attempt to kill, like MP Steven Timms was stabbed by yet another Pakistani Muslim woman “constituent” pretending to visit him in his office.
The Leftist lawfare is blatant, shameless.
It’s how they rule.
Count the lawyers in Blair’s cabinet.
It’s how they run rings around the Conservatives.
More to come, get used to it.
If you want to blame any tendency then call it careerism. As if your unblemished career can protect you in the final reckoning. Truly professional people never tink like that they are devoted to their own excellence. Many surgeons work long hours and produce positive results when most of us would be tired. That is true excellence. They never ask for reward or recognition.
Looks like there will be promotion for Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram.
Yes, and a promotion of the “Country formerly called England” to “Outer Pakistan”.
Tanweer Ikram is of Pakistani Muslim origin (there it is, Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan again & again), and throwing ANY SUBSTANCE into someone else’s eyes, face and clothing is PHYSICAL ASSAULT, and must be treated as such, unless done in self-defence. Especially when political candidates and serving Members of Parliament have been physically attacked with liquids and rocks, stabbed and murdered by criminal members of the public while attempting to carry out their political duties.
That disgusting, morally depraved porn star was let off for physically assaulting an electoral candidate for no reason at all, while British Patriots were thrown into prison for hurty words.
Tanweer Ikram is yet another reason to ABOLISH THE JUDICIARY ENTIRELY, and let local Indigenous English shire reeves (“sheriffs”) chosen by local citizens decide on the best way to punish actions considered as crimes by local people. Let all the “devolved” lot decide for themselves. Why do we need a Tyrannical Parliament anymore, chosen by only 20% of the voters, when everything can be more democratically decided at a local or county level, with local referendums and public meetings for the Indigenous Citizens?
And let’s start asking why we need more & more laws, rules, regulations, taxes and trade agreements that are nothing more than asset-stripping the nation. The whole lot should be abolished and start again with a clean slate, creating no more than 100 laws, each described in no more than a few paragraphs on a single page. The Ten Commandments would be a good place to start. Simple and easy to understand. No Judiciary Required.
Ikram cannot be trusted he will have to go.
Sadly this is just yet another example of how the left bypassed democracy by placing itself into positions of unelected power.
From the innumerable council ‘officers’ (none of them Sandhurst trained I’ll warrant) to the highly paid executives of NGOs these people now govern every aspect of our lives. The police and Judiciary are just their dogmatic enforcers.
An impressive coup d’état but not exactly bloodless as the many who face years incarcerated for the smallest act of defiance will likely attest.
A class set of examples why people are losing faith in everything, how is he still in his position?, clearly biased.
We can see what he is doing. He is an establishment bot and peddling communist policiesnto destroy us.
The civil war will come if nothing is done to stop this leftist bias.
She would have been publicly flogged if she’d have thrown it over an Imam. Simples….
If it had been a Labour politician assaulted, she’d have been banged up for 2 years.
Two-Tier “Justice” in Two-Tier’s Britain.
I’m am not a lawyer, but could someone explain how in the sentence below “grossly offensive” is a question [matter] of fact when it can only be the opinion of a person whether that be the complainant or the judge?
“The Law Society Gazette explains: “Whether an electronic message is ‘grossly offensive’ within section 127(1)(a) ‘is a question of fact to be answered objectively by reference to its contents and context, and not its actual effect’.””
Face it, the legal ‘profession’ has been captured. Phil Shiner is a role model for law students.