Arranged marriage snub led to hate campaign

When the victim blocked messages from Zain-Ul-Arefin Amir he began to bombard her workplace, a dental practice in Glenrothes.

This culminated in him going there and spray-painting a swastika on the building.

Zain-Ul-Arefin Amir was previously found guilty by a jury of sending racist abusive messages to the female for months.

Amir, who owns a property-letting business, was caught out through a top-up card bought at a Tesco store in Dundee which was then used on a phone used to send some of hate messages.

Amir, 35, of Candie Crescent, Grangemouth, was found guilty of two charges after a three-day trial at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.

His victim told the court that she met Amir on two occasions with a view to a possible arranged marriage.

He went to her parents’ home twice but they only spoke on the second occasion, when they were left together for around 20 minutes.

She said afterwards she had sent him a text thanking him for coming to the house but saying they were not compatible and a marriage would not be going ahead.

He continued to send her messages afterwards and she asked him to stop as she felt it was not appropriate to keep in touch.

She then started to receive abusive messages from numbers she did not recognise calling her a “slut” and a “whore”.

Messages continued to come, some in the middle of the night and often of a racist nature.

When he could not contact her directly, Amir then sent around 30 messages a day to the dental practice where she works.

He then went there and spray-painted abusive messages on the wall and also put up a swastika. Some of the messages sent over the months were racist and referred to the victim as a “Paki”.

Amir denied that on various occasions between August 1 last year and April 14 at Candie Crescent, Grangemouth, High Street, Leslie and elsewhere he engaged in a course of conduct which caused the female fear or alarm by repeatedly sending text messages which contained sexual, derogatory, abusive and racial remarks directed at her, to her place of employment and attended her place of employment at Glenrothes and spray-painted on the walls there an offensive message and a swastika.

The jury found Amir guilty of the charges by unanimous verdicts.

Sheriff Charles Macnair imposed a community payback order with 250 hours of unpaid work and a three-month restriction of liberty order. He also imposed a non-harassment order for an indefinite period.