Man arrested after Koran 'desecrated' in hospital faith room

Police confirmed a 36-year-old man had been arrested in relation to "criminal damage" at the site.

According to an internal email sent to staff and obtained by the BBC, both the Muslim holy book and a framed chapter of the text sustained damage during the incident.

In the email, CEO of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Brendan Brown, said "no colleague, patient or member of our communities should have to experience or hear about these kinds of actions".

Mr Brown told the BBC the incident was "worrying and completely unacceptable".

A West Yorkshire Police spokeswoman said: "A man has been arrested following an incident of criminal damage within a multi-faith room in the Bexley Wing at St James’s Hospital, Leeds, on Saturday, November 29.

"The 36-year-old man is currently in custody."

GB News has contacted Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust for comment.

St James's University Hospital is one of the country's biggest teaching hospitals.

It has been found to "require improvements" by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The health and social care watchdog most recently carried out an inspection of the hospital's maternity and neonatal services following "a number of concerns".

The maternity service was ranked "inadequate" while the neonatal service was concluded to "require improvement".

The hospital trust said it was committed to improving its services following the inspection.

In a separate incident earlier this year, a man burned a Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London.

Hamit Coskun was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence after shouting “f*** Islam” while holding the flaming religious text aloft but successfully won an appeal against his conviction in October.

Campaigners had argued the prosecution and conviction was akin to blasphemy being reintroduced "by the back door, inadvertently, by our court service".

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