By Staff Reporter

Last updated 13:13, Monday, 30 June 2008

A soldier is to be thrown out of the army after he was jailed yesterday for shouting racial abuse at a west Cumbrian couple.

A judge has said racism is rife on a Whitehaven estate

Victor Davidson, 19, of Cleator Moor, was one of two men jailed for eight months at Carlisle Crown Court for shouting sexually insulting and racist comments at a middle-aged couple, one of whom comes from the Philippines.

He and Renwick Dockwray, 20, of Whitehaven, had each been sent to the higher court for sentencing after being found guilty by local magistrates of racist behaviour on the Hensingham estate. They had pleaded not guilty.

The judge, Recorder Roderick Carus QC, said it was clear that racism was “endemic” on the Hensingham estate where the incident happened on August 23 last year.

The victims, 62-year-old Michael Korwin-Granford and his Filipino wife Lilia, who is in her fifties, said they had been plagued by it for the four-and-a-half years they had lived in the area.

In a statement read to the court Mrs Korwin-Granford said: “Throughout our entire time in the area we have been plagued by youths causing a nuisance and being racially abusive.

“The incidents range from criminal damage to my car to verbal abuse when we walk to the local shops.”

Mrs Korwin-Granford also said her son had been racially abused on his way to school.

The court heard how Mr and Mrs Korwin-Granford were on their way home to Cumberland Road from a hospital appointment when they heard Davidson and Dockwray shouting abusive comments.

Some of the comments were racist, some sexual and some both. Of one of the comments the judge said: “I can’t think of anything more humiliating to say to a man in the presence of his wife in a public street.”

The judge said it was clear that racism was rife in the area. “There is a very strong suggestion that these two victims have become the butt and target of this sort of behaviour in the area and it is not the first time these two defendants have been involved in it,” he said.

“I am quite satisfied that a climate of fear and harassment is being deliberately fomented against these two people simply because she comes from another country and another culture.”

The judge reserved his strongest condemnation for Davidson who, because of the custodial sentence, will automatically be dismissed from the Army.

After reading a report from Davidson’s commanding officer, he said: “He does not come to this court with a glowing regimental record.

“Far from it. He is not a model soldier.”

And, after defence barrister Greg Hoare suggested the army private should receive a more lenient sentence to allow him to fulfil his next posting to Iraq or Afghanistan, the judge said: “He can’t use his uniform to shield himself from the proper consequences of this sort of thing.

“Being a soldier in some ways makes it even worse. He is there to protect people, not to make their lives a misery.”

Turning to Davidson, he said: “You make a habit of abusing people.

“What right you think you have to do that, I know not.

“It is for others to say whether you will be a great loss to the Army.”