By the Fahrenheit 211 courts correspondent

There were astonishing scenes at Southwark Crown Court yesterday when the chief prosecution witness in a racial and religious harassment case got so angry and aggressive during cross examination tha he had to be told by the defence barrister to ‘stop shouting’.

Fiyaz Mughal, was giving evidence in the trial of Tim Burton of the Liberty GB political party,who denies racially or religiously harassing Mr Mughal by allegedly calling him a ‘mendacious grievance mongering taqiyya artist’, a ‘Muslim scumbag’ and by referring to Mr Mughal as ‘Fizzy Bollocks’. During his evidence, which was given by video link, Mr Mughal denied claims made by the defence that he had ‘exaggerated’ the effect of the emails allegedly sent by Mr Burton to Mr Mughal.

During cross examination by Mr Burton’s defence counsel Ms Olive Lycourgou, Mr Mughal became visibly angry, ill-tempered and agitated at suggestions by Ms Lycourgou that the email commuications allegedly sent by Mr Burton did not constitue a ‘threat’. Mr Mughal also denied to the court that he ‘exaggerated’ the level of fearfulness he felt at the communications he allegedly received from Mr Burton. Mr Mughal denied additional suggestions by the defence counsel that rather than being the sort of person who would be easily frightened, Mr Mughal was himself an aggressor who had ‘pursued’ those who had criticised either Mr Mughal or his organisation the ‘anti Islamophobia’ monitor Tell Mama.

Mr Mughal leaned into the video link camera and shouted his denials that he was an aggressive man who had sent libel threat letters to a number of people who had criticised the Tell Mama organisation. He became so angry at the line of questioning that at one point Mr Mughal had to be told to ‘stop shouting by Ms Lycourgou. Mr Mughal also appeared to evade questions about why he found the allleged communications threatening and instead  made various negative comments about the defendant, various counterjihad writers and others. Mr Mughal also claimed that when he was a public figure as part of Tell Mama, the criticism and mockery that he and his group received in alleged emails from Mr Burton was because of his ‘identity as a non practising Muslim’ .

Tim Burton of Birmingham denies one charge of racial and religious harassment against Mr Mughal.

The trial continues