TIMESONLINE: A gift-shop owner extorted £8,000 from a Muslim student who feared that she would be reported to the police as a “terrorist sympathiser”, a court was told yesterday.
Mary Sturges, who owns a shop selling teddy bears in Totnes, Devon, is alleged to have concocted an elaborate story to persuade Nabilah Hussain, 21, to hand over the money. Mrs Sturges, 53, claimed that Ms Hussain, whom she had befriended, had been recorded by her hairdresser’s husband saying that the “the British deserve what they get” during a discussion about terrorism.
She claimed to be a former solicitor and warned Ms Hussain that she could end up in court over the comments. At first she said that the hairdresser’s husband wanted £200, but after Ms Hussain had paid the demands became larger and she handed over a total of £8,000, Plymouth Crown Court was told. >>> Simon de Bruxelles | Tuesday, May 19, 2009
