Fellow blogger Tower Hamlets Watch spotted it first. The following article appeared as a small item on page 3 of this week’s new-look East London Advertiser.
Headlined “Cabdriver molested passenger”, it read:
An unlicensed cabbie who was slammed by a judge for not bothering to learn English was caged for grabbing a passenger’s breasts.
Zamal Uddin, 44, twice sexually assaulted the 26-year-old in Hoxton last October after she got into his illegal taxi after a night out with friends.
Judge Timothy King had blasted Bangladesh-born Uddin, who was aided in court by an interpreter, for not learning English after moving to the UK in 1992.
And before passing sentence the judge was handed testimonials on Uddin’s behalf from several Tower Hamlets councillors and the borough’s mayor Lutfur Rahman. Judge King said they all seemed “to be in ignorance of your background and personality”.
Jailing Uddin for 18 months, Judge King described how he leaned over and touched his passenger’s breasts in the cab before following her after she fled into an alley where he pinned her against the wall and touched her under her clothing.
Uddin, of Rogers Estate, Globe Road, was also ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for 10 years. He admitted two charges of sexual assault and driving while disqualified.
The italics above are mine. It was this somewhat buried sentence that caught the attention of Tower Hamlets Watch. I spoke today to the agency reporter who filed the story and no more details were read out in court. The judge neither named the other councillors who had provided references nor disclosed their contents. He didn’t actually name Lutfur, but said the reference came from the “mayor of Tower Hamlets”.
So I sought confirmation from the press office at Tower Hamlets council that Lutfur had indeed provided a reference. The answer from Takki Sulaiman’s office was: “The mayor does not comment on private correspondence.” Well, given that he used his public and elected title in his correspondence to the court, there is an argument that he should. I’m also waiting to hear if Lutfur’s letter was written on council logo stationery. [UPDATE AT 7pm: council press office refuse to comment on whether letter was written on official stationery.]
Meanwhile, can anyone please help shed some light on Zamal Uddin? Who is he and why is he so popular with the mayor and other councillors?
I wonder what Uddin’s victim thinks of such heavyweight support.
By the way, the original court case was reported in both the Daily Mail and the Telegraph.
Even if he did it’s nothing new:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23818015-mp-siobhain-mcdonagh-writes-letter-to-court-for-her-drug-smuggling-cousin.do
Well that makes it OK then
Surely the difference is that Siobhain McDonagh’s ill-advised letter was based on her personal knowledge of her cousin’s “background and personality”. Something that was woefully missing, at least according to Judge King, from the Mayor’s and Councillor’s testimonials. Who is Zamal Uddin, and why the concern over his fate?
This is horrific.
It is totally indefensible.
Presumably the Lutfur supporting commenters will try to claim is this racist or Islamophobic.
It’s neither – it’s a total f____king scandal.
This might be the end for Rahman
Wow amazing, most of teds other posts regarding Lutfur and his deeds usually elicit a quick response from the megaphone of cronies linked to this idiot within 1 to 2 hours, but this one……..
“sound of wind”
…..is that a tumbleweed?…….
“This town, is coming like a ghost town”
@ susie
We do not blindly follow Lutfur. If he does something wrong I/we will go against him on that point.
But I am waiting to hear from Lutfur’s side of the story to understand the whole picture. Ted just gave us one perspective. If it is correct I will write against Lutfur.
Point is though don’t hate everything about someone and don’t love everything about someone. It should be conditional support.
Cheers
The thing is Left_winger I doubt very much if ‘Count Lutfur’ is going to give his side of the story. He’ll just dig himself a deeper hole, in fact I guarantee that right now he’s trying to mitigate the damage from this by refusing any and all requests for clarity on his position.
I notice though that in earlier reports that Zamar Uddin was potentially up for deportation as well as a jail sentence, this now seems to have been dropped. Maybe thats what the ‘Count’ was trying to achieve.
Remember this Zamar Uddin had already admitted 2 counts of sexual assault in early February. It now seems that Lutfur and the rest wrote their testimonials after this admittance, just before sentencing this week.
Teds right, who is this Zamar? What connection or power does he wield that would prompt elected officials to associate themselves politically with someone like this?
It seems that this guy was a protege of Siraj Uddin [CONTENT REMOVED FRO LEGAL REASONS].
As always Ted, you fucking bottle it.
Who’s Siraj Uddin? Any relation to Siraj Islam?
[...] minicab molester: Lutfur’s explanation Further to my post here yesterday about Lutfur Rahman’s court reference for the convicted minicab molester Zamal Uddin, the [...]