It’s a verdict that would make the Ayatollah smile. Today, in nominally liberal Britain, a man has been found guilty of a crime after he dared to burn a Koran in public. Hamit Coskun, a Turkish-born asylum seeker, has been convicted of a ‘religiously aggravated public-order offence’ over his – quite literally – incendiary protest outside of the Turkish consulate in London in February, against what he sees as the Islamist turn of Erdogan’s Turkey. If nothing else, Coskun’s stunt has exposed the Islamist-apologist turn of our own United Kingdom.

On paper, Coskun has been convicted of ‘disorderly behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress’, motivated by ‘hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam’, contrary to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Public Order Act 1986. But we all know what that word salad really means in practice, regardless of the judge’s many assurances to the contrary. Coskun has been convicted, and fined £240, for blasphemy. All by a supposedly secular court.

The judgement, handed down by district judge John McGarva, is an elaborate exercise in victim-blaming. Coskun was assaulted at the scene by two men – first by a passerby armed with a knife, then by a delivery rider who kicked Coskun while he was on the floor. Remarkably, this is used as proof of his guilt. ‘That the conduct was disorderly is no better illustrated than by the fact that it led to serious public disorder involving him being assaulted by two different people’, says McGarva. Thank God he wasn’t also wearing a short skirt, eh?