Can a Devout Muslim Be a Rapist?

No, that's not a trick question.

This story concerns an argument between two rapists which got out of hand in HMP Acklington. Andrew Dawson annoyed the man in the next cell with his tendency to feed the seagulls from his cell window.

This man was Karim Munde, and to get his own back on Dawson he naturally gathered two other black inmates and they beat him up in the showers.

Munde then made the rest of Dawson's sentence a misery, allegedly subjecting him to a prolonged campaign of bullying, described as 'relentless'.

In response, Dawson chose the moment he was being released to toss a tobacco pouch containing his own excrement and two racist letters into Munde's cell.

This landed him in court, and he now has to complete 180 hours of unpaid work and pay £70 costs.

I'm more interested in how the stories describe Munde. In the first story, he is a 'black Irishman originally from Sierra Leone, also a practising Muslim'.

In the second story, he becomes a devout Muslim.

Now, if a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu committed rape, would you refer to him as 'devout'? Devout implies living a certain kind of life due to one's religious beliefs, not violently attacking innocent women.

There is another very disturbing aspect to this; namely, a white prisoner can receive a beating and relentless abuse from a group of black inmates without comment or action from the authorities; as soon as the white prisoner retaliates, albeit in a ridiculously infantile way, he has the book thrown at him.

Here is an extract from the story:

Prosecutor James Long said: "The victim in this case was a black Irishman, originally from Sierra Leone, who is also a Muslim, and is serving a sentence for rape.

"The only knowledge he has of the defendant is that he is the man who feeds the birds out of his window.

"As the defendant was being escorted, a prison officer saw him throw something into the cell of the victim, which turned out to be a white envelope and a tobacco pouch.

"Inside the envelope were two pages of A4 – it would be kind to refer to it as a letter – of largely racist abuse. There were many derogatory, insulting and obscene references to the victim being a black African person."

Mr Long added: "The pouch did not contain tobacco – it in fact contained excrement. When the victim opened it, he describes feeling physically sick."

Quizzed about the package, Dawson made a full admission but denied being a racist, saying it was revenge for the treatment he had received at the hands of the victim and his cohorts whilst serving his sentence.

Defending, Richard Scott said Dawson had been 'relentlessly bullied' over claims that he had fed seagulls at his window, which had disturbed other prisoners with their constant noise.

"He says he was not responsible, but he was accused of being the 'bird man of Acklington'," he said. "These people made it their business to make his life as difficult as possible, and he was also assaulted in the showers by the victim.

"It was against this background that he wrote this nonsense. In a tin-pot way he was trying to get his own back. It was infantile."

The fact that the 'victim' is not some innocent lamb but a violent rapist is barely mentioned - and frankly the whole thing makes me feel physically sick.