Court bans man from sitting on Oxfam windowsill after anti-English insult

A court has banned a man from sitting on the windowsill of a charity bookshop after he called the manager an “English b*****d”.

Stirling Sheriff Court heard that there had been an “ongoing issue” with people sitting on the windowsill of the Oxfam bookshop in Murray Place, Stirling, drinking alcohol, and “being a nuisance”.

On July 16, 2024, the manager, Neil Paterson, was going out for lunch when he noticed two men, one of them Paul Kelly, 46, seated on the sill.

Prosecutor Lindsey Brooks said: “He approached them and asked them to move.

“The accused told him to f*** off.

“The witness persisted in asking that the accused move on.

“At this, the accused stood up and stood face-to-face with the witness and shouted, ‘fuck off you English bastard’.”

Mr Paterson went back inside the shop, followed by the accused, and another member of staff flagged down a passing police car and Kelly was apprehended.

Kelly, of Cornton, Stirling, admitted behaving in a racially-aggravated aggressive manner.

Defence solicitor Fraser McCready, defending, said Kelly was “very remorseful”.

He said: “He’d had far too much to drink, and can’t remember anything.”

Mr McCready invited the court to either fine Kelly, or to defer sentence for him to be of good behaviour.

He said told Sheriff Mark O’Hanlon: “If you did that, you could impose a special bail condition that he’s not to go down to Oxfam and he’s not to sit on their premises.”

Sheriff O’Hanlon deferred sentence for six months for Kelly to show he can be of good behaviour, with a special bail condition “not to be outside 79 Murray Place, Stirling” (the premises of Oxfam) in the meantime.