Teen admits punching Singapore student saying: ‘I don’t want your coronavirus in my country’
A teenage boy, 15, has admitted to attacking a Singaporean student after telling him: ‘I don’t want your coronavirus in my country’.
The boy singled out Jonathan Mok, then 23, as he walked along Oxford Street on February 24 – four weeks before the UK entered lockdown. Mr Mok said he turned around to a group of men after hearing the racist comment, before one man said ‘don’t you dare look at me’ and punched him in the face.
The law student’s face ‘exploded with blood’ before it spilled all over the pavement, causing Mr Mok to need surgery. The boy, from Camden who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted wounding or inflicting grievous bodily harm at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court today.
CPS prosecutor Daniel Kavanagh said Mr Mok was clearly targeted because of his ethnicity.
He said: ‘This was a vicious and completely unprovoked attack on a young man who was simply making his way home with a friend after dinner in central London.
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‘He was clearly targeted in this hate crime because of his ethnic appearance. Hate crime has a corrosive effect on our society and nobody should be subjected to such vile behaviour.
‘The prosecution case included CCTV footage of the incident, leaving the defendant little choice but to plead guilty and own up to his actions.’
Mok was one of a number of people to experience racist attacks in Britain at the start of the pandemic.
At the time of the attack, he said: ‘It is ridiculous people are being targeted for being Asian.
‘I do everything as if it were normal, I’m not afraid of these people and I refuse to let them think I am afraid of them.’
Prosecutors said they would apply to have the assault treated as a hate crime at a sentencing hearing on September 7.
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