Brute friend of Anjem Choudary who punched schoolboy unconscious for cuddling his girlfriend in the street is jailed
35-year-old Michael Coe was found guilty of assaulting the teen in August
A MUSLIM convert who knocked a schoolboy unconscious for cuddling his girlfriend has been jailed for two-and-a-half years.
35-year-old Michael Coe - a close associate of convicted hate preacher Anjem Choudary - was found guilty of assaulting the teen on an east London street in August.
Coe - who was radicalised in prison by al Qaeda terrorist Dhiren Barot in 2007 - was driving through east London when he spotted the two 16-year-olds hugging on the pavement.
He pulled over to confront the pair, demanding to know if they were Muslims, before calling the girl a "whore".
When passing schoolteacher Boutho Siwela tried to come to the teenager's aid, he then attacked him.
Coe, who is 6ft 1in and weighs 16 and a half stone, admitted "shoving" the boy, who is half his size, but claimed he was acting in self defence.
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay, the victim said he felt "dizzy" after the attack and "couldn't see".
Mr Polnay said: "He needed help to stand and walk for a week. He says he has missed school.
"The effects of the attack has caused difficulties at home."
"'I cannot forget how frightened I was.'"
Coe was convicted after a trial at Southwark Crown Court of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and battery in Newham, London, on April 15.
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The jury of six men and six women returned unanimous guilty verdicts after one and a half hours of deliberation.
Sentencing was adjourned until September 21, but then delayed until today due to a clerical error.
Today in court, Coe's barrister slammed the press for portraying him as as "a beast and a monster".
Naeem Mian said: "He is not a self-appointed enforcer. He has had a difficult life, a fractured life. He is a father, somebody who cares very much for his mother."
But jailing him for two years and four months Judge Michael Gledhill, QC, said: "You are a man who is ready to blame others for the difficulties in your life.
"But you are prepared to use violence when it suits you, just as you did in this case.
"You either hold extremist views and I have no doubt that these views were nurtured in prison and probably outside prison, by your association with convicted extremists in prison and outside prison.
"Nothing should have led to you interpret their actions as out of the ordinary.
"You stopped to reprimand them and you were acting as a self-appointed enforcer.
"You asked them whether they were Muslim, but they lied and didn't say that they were not because they were frightened of you, and of what you would do."
Wearing a dark-grey Adidas tracksuit, Coe leaned back in his chair with his hands on his head as Judge Gledhill jailed him for 24 months for the ABH and four months for battery, to be served consecutively.
The thug was convicted of a similar offence in May 2013 after getting out of his car to confront a group of youngsters about their "inappropriate language" on an estate in east London.
He allegedly called a young girl a "slut" and the others "kafir scum" during the incident.
He served an eight-year term for firing a shotgun at police during an arrest.
Coe, since known as Mikaeel Ibrahim, has attended a number of extremist demonstrations, including protests over the banning of niqabs in France and the values of Sharia law.
He has also been photographed at a demonstration on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
Meanwhile, in December 2013 he took part in a demonstration in Brick Lane, east London, against Muslim shopkeepers selling alcohol.
The married father-of-two was jailed for 15 months after being found in the back of a lorry with false ID documents at the Kent port of Dover in November 2014.
He was accused of plotting to travel to Syria to join IS but was acquitted of engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts.
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