Fact Check: 2012 video falsely shared as recent anti-Muslim attack in UK

An X user shared the video (disturbing visuals) with the caption: “Islamophobia again. A Muslim woman wearing a hijab is attacked by an alleged British native man. It was an Islamophobic attack. They hate us… how much more can we take in Britain?#UK #Islam #Muslim #Britain. (sic)” (Archive)

The 23-second video shows a person assaulting a woman in a hijab, with a text overlay stating, “More than six thousand Islamophobic hate crimes are reported each year.”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false.

Through a reverse image search, we found the video on an X post from July 15, 2015. The caption read: “A British man beats a veiled Muslim girl and she dies as a result of the blow. Share so it doesn’t get deleted. Send it for the world to see. (sic)”

The time stamp on the video, which looked like CCTV footage, showed that the incident occurred on November 13, 2012, at 12:36:25 hours.

This indicated that the video was old.

Further, a keyword search led us to a report by UK Mirror dated November 20, 2012, titled ‘Find this vile thug: CCTV footage shows sickening moment teenage girl is punched to the ground – VIDEO’. This report stated that the video showed the attack on a teenage girl in Plaistow, East London.

Additionally, we found a February 25 report by The Guardian titled, ‘East London man jailed for random attacks on teenage girl and student.’ The report identified the attacker as Michael Ayoade.

According to the report, he was sentenced to four years for the assault on the teenager and 19 months for attacking a student, both to be served concurrently.

We also found another report by The Telegraph titled, ‘Man who knocked 16-year-old girl unconscious in street attack jailed,’ which identified the victim as Tasneem Kabir.

The police testimony in the report stated that the 34-year-old attacker from Plaistow assaulted her because ‘she didn’t have a friendly face’ and that ‘she had started it.’ Ayoade further stated that the schoolgirl ‘intimidated him’ and made him ‘feel like a pauper with her facial gestures,’ adding that he ‘couldn't cope with being insulted by someone so small.’

Hence, the video circulating online as evidence of a recent anti-Muslim attack is false. It is an old video from 2012 with no communal angle.