London police charge man suspected of smearing feces on synagogues, Jewish sites
Ionut-Cristian Bold, 37, charged with religiously motivated criminal damage after he allegedly vandalized seven Jewish sites in acts that police called 'revolting and appalling'
British police on Sunday charged a 37-year old man with religiously motivated criminal damage after a number of attacks on synagogues and Jewish premises in northwest London.
The man was arrested last week in the Hendon area of north London, the Metropolitan Police said.
Seven Jewish premises have been targeted in separate incidents over the last 10 days, police said, including four synagogues being smeared with a substance, while a liquid was thrown towards a school and over a car.
Police called the acts “revolting and appalling.”
According to local reports, the synagogues and a private residence in Golders Green had feces smeared on them, while urine was thrown toward a school and over a car in two other instances.
Police said they charged Ionut-Cristian Bold of no fixed address with six counts of racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage and three counts of damaging property plus other offenses, and he is due to appear at Willesden Magistrates Court on Monday where he will enter his plea.
“We will always treat allegations of this nature extremely seriously and these charges follow an investigation by a team of local officers,” Superintendent Zubin Writer said in a statement.
The UK has seen an increased number of antisemitic incidents in recent years, with a spike since the October 7, 2023, massacre by the Hamas terror group in Israel, and the resulting war in Gaza.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a Jewish charity, recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents in the first six months of the year, down from a record high of 2,019 incidents in the first half of 2024.
But this year’s number was the second-highest on record, according to the charity, which has monitored antisemitism in Britain since 1984.