Islamic hate messenger slapped with stay-at-home sentence
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A middle-aged woman who wrote “F–k Islam” on the front door of a Midtown Islamic bakery was given a one-month stay-at-home sentence and 18 months probation for her hate-filled message.
“The nature of the mischief needs to be denounced and deterred,” Justice Howard Borenstein said Friday as he passed sentence on Laura Elliott for the April 2018 incident at Sugar Miracles Patisserie and Cafe at 2674 Yonge St.
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“I do find she’s profoundly remorseful and she has apologized, saying she’s truly sorry for any suffering she has caused the staff and owners,” the judge said. ” She asked for their forgiveness.”
Borenstein also ordered Elliott to perform 30 hours of community service.
The owners, immigrants from Iran who don traditional Muslim headwear, expressed their forgiveness to the police, saying, “We are appreciative of Canada and Canadian diversity.”
Crown attorney Cidalia Faria implored the judge to impose a three-month conditional sentence, saying the accused, while remorseful, “targeted a particular victim.”
“The disappointment is she hasn’t gone to the source of this hate,” said Faria. “She has remorse without insight at this point.”
“The reason that general deterrence and denunciation is required is, although she has received counselling, she lacks insight into the source of the hatred,” said Faria.
The accused, who has no prior brushes with the law, is college-educated and “should know better than to do this,” said Faria.
Elliott has no alcohol or drug issues but has suffered from anxiety and depression.
The 55-year-old executive assistant, who pleaded guilty to mischief under $5,000 in September 2019 confessed to Toronto Police when she was arrested in November 2018.
Elliott was identified via store surveillance video that showed her carrying a backpack only available to Canadian Tire Corporation employees at nearby Yonge St. and, Eglinton Ave.
Elliott, who reported she and other Jewish community members have been victimized by mischief and were “not taken seriously in the past,” said she’s “ashamed of her actions against these people.”
“I know how I felt when I had anti-Semitic things done to me,” she said. “It’s horrible and unfair.”
“I’m not an Islamaphobe,” Elliott said in court Friday.
A therapist stated in a pre-sentence report that Elliott claimed her emotions and reactions “were extreme due to hormonal changes brought on by peri-menopause.”
Elliott has undergone counselling and vowed “this won’t happen again.”
“I’m not the same person as I was then,” she said.
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