Man jailed for racially aggravated attack

A man has been jailed for 18 months after he threatened to kill staff and students at Bradford College with garden secateurs during a tirade of racial abuse.

Bradford Crown Court was told David Noutch, 32, had approached students outside the college on Great Horton Road on 9 October 2025 while intoxicated. He started a fight before threatening security guards, directing racial abuse at staff and attempting to attack them with the shears.

Noutch, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty in June to racially aggravated assault, racially aggravated fear of violence and threatening a person with a blade in a public place.

He was sentenced on Wednesday to 18.5 months in jail and 18.5 months on licence.

During sentencing, the Recorder of Bradford, Judge Patrick Palmer, said Noutch had been trying to start a "major incident" and described his offences as "deeply troubling".

"These are very serious offences, indeed," he told him.

"You took out a pair of garden secateurs and ran toward Asian members of staff as if to attack them."

Palmer paid credit to the security guards who were attacked by Noutch and who managed to stop his attempts while being racially abused.

"Members of the public were seriously offended by your conduct, but to their credit they acted responsibly," he said.

Two people were taken to hospital for treatment to non-life threatening injuries following the incident, police said at the time.

In a victim statement read to the court by prosecuting barrister Lydia Pierce, one of the victims, Mohsin Saghir, 37, said that as a British-Pakistani Muslim he felt "personally targeted" by Noutch's attack and he had found it "deeply upsetting and humiliating".

Saghir had "been internally affected by the abuse and felt it hard to ignore", Pierce explained.

"The day after the attack, he went to the GP and was told he had experienced trauma and to take time off work."

In his statement, Saghir added: "Racist and religious hatred has no place in our society."

Meanwhile, Pierce said that Mahmood Hassan, who received a knee injury during the attack, had suffered sleepless nights and mental health difficulties since the incident.

"He always looks over his shoulder, feeling paranoid and stressed," she said.

Hassan's injury had stopped him playing football, leading to periods of depression, Pierce told the court.

"He struggles to be the same at work and suffers with anxiety."

In Noutch's defence, barrister Jeremy Barton said his client was "remorseful and disgusted when he hears and sees what he did that day".

He said Noutch had been sleeping rough the night before the attack and had not taken medicine prescribed to him.

"The defendant accepts all the prosecution says, but did not set out that day to behave that way," Barton said.

He added that Noutch had behaved well in prison, earning "enhanced prisoner" status, and said that his outburst that day was "not deeply held beliefs".

Noutch – who has 37 previous convictions for 64 offences - was sentenced to a total of 37 months, to serve half in custody and half on licence.

As he has already served more than a year on remand in custody, he would remain in prison for only another six months, the court was told.

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