Man who harassed lollipop lady outside school jailed for 10 months 

A pensioner who harassed a lollipop lady by stealing her stick, rubbing his groin and thrusting at her outside Jacob Rees-Mogg’s prep school has been jailed for 10 months.

Mukesh Vala brought the woman to tears and made her dread going to work after harassing her on three occasions through September and October last year.

The 66-year-old accosted the woman as part of a string of crimes in which he also admitted to making calls to his local GP surgery and to 999 more than 13 times, claiming to be Adolf Hitler and Jack the Ripper. 

He also repeatedly called for paramedics, asking to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital. On one occasion he used a racial slur against a paramedic while verbally abusing another with xenophobic language, South West News Service reported.

Vala’s campaign of harassment took place when he was already subject to a suspended prison sentence and he was held in custody for twelve weeks awaiting sentence. 

Southwark Crown Court today heard how Vala, a London resident, suffered from chronic alcohol addiction and mental health problems.

Vala admitted one count of racially aggravated assault, one count of racially aggravated harassment, two counts of assaulting an emergency worker, one count of outraging public decency, one count of using abusive words to distress, one count of harassment without violence, one count of using public communications to cause anxiety and one count of commission of a further offence during a suspended sentence order. 

Judge David Tomlinson said: ‘You made calls either to the emergency 999 service or to your own doctor’s surgery.

‘In one of them you made to your GP surgery you said you were Hitler and armed with knives and replica guns you said you were insane and hearing voices.

‘In one call you abused the practice manager and threatened to slash her throat.

‘Things came to a head at around 5am on February 5 when you spoke to a female call handler of the emergency services identifying yourself as Adolf Hitler and Jack The Ripper and made grotesque threats of self harm or to harm others.

‘Police arrested you at your flat on February 6. You were very intoxicated and said you couldn’t remember making the calls but you remember you wanted to create a drama.

‘You maintained that you were asking for help and wanted to be admitted to a mental health facility for at least 21 days and didn’t realise what you had done was an offence.’

The court heard how months later Vala resumed his attempt to be admitted to a mental health hospital by calling the London Ambulance Service.

Judge Tomlinson said: ‘There were three offences of assault all on the second of July 2020. The first two are described as assaults on emergency workers and the third is a racially aggravated assault.

‘It was your call to the London Ambulance Service which resulted on two occasions that day with the attendance of two paramedics the same two paramedics on each occasion who were not persuaded that you needed any particular assistance that they were capable of offering.

‘You called on of them a n***** and said you would smash their heads in with a dagger.

No weapon was seen. 

‘There, again, you were saying that you wanted to go to an A&E. Again so you racially abused at least one of the paramedics and also grabbed your own private parts and at one stage said to one of them ‘suck my juicy c***’.

Judge Tomlinson explained how on August 25 Vala again called an ambulance but abused a paramedic telling him to ‘go back to Australia’ and calling him an ‘Aussie c***’.

Addressing Vala, who appeared via video link from Wandsworth prison, Judge Tomlinson turned the harassment of lollipop lady Julie Khames who worked outside Westminster Under School from mid October and into September.

He said: ‘Julie Khames, someone who would normally have the joyous job of a lollipop stick lady in the vicinity of this school and on 25 September 2020 you grabbed her lollipop stick out of her hand near the school threw it away and rubbed your groin in a lewd way in her direction.

‘On September 29, the deputy head teacher intervened and you said JK had a disease and threatened to kill the headteacher.

‘October 2 You held your groin and thrust it in the direction of passers-by and said ‘I’m mad you know’.

‘It reached the stage when Julie Khamer was stressed at her home and no longer looked forward to going to work.

‘She would go home and cry because you were making her life miserable. What ought to have been a cheerful job of ensuring the safety of children near their school at opening and closing times was turned into a nightmare.’

James Dean, prosecuting, said that Vala had also sworn at Khamer and ran a trolley over her toes. 

Many of his crimes took place in front of pupils of the £41,000 a year school, whose alumni includes Tory minister Rees-Mogg, Andrew Lloyd Webber, his brother Julian, and Labour MP Hilary Benn. 

Vala was also slapped with a restraining order, forbidding him from going near the school.  

Leila Mezoughi, defending, said
although Vala was living alone and had addiction issues, he was receiving ‘quite significant support’ and had a ‘regular support network’.