Question Author
A while ago now, Talbot, I had a brief exchange with Mikey over Anjem Choudary. I said that, unlike him (Mikey), I rather liked Choudary. The reason I gave was that Choudary has never pretended that he wanted anything other than to impose sharia on the rest of us. Of course, I had in mind the kind of people who share his agenda, but dissemble the fact. Shakeel Begg appears to be one of the latter sort. Interestingly he received support in the court case from the following character witnesses (I'm quoting Begg's Wiki entry):
Chief Inspector Graham Price of the Lewisham Police
Reverend David Rome of the Catford and Bromley Synagogue
Father Charles Pickstone, vicar of St Laurence Church, Catford,
Reverend Malcolm Hancock, who headed up the Chaplaincy Department at the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust
Dinah Griffith, former chair of the Lewisham SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education)
Gerald Rose, a retired schoolteacher
Seventh, Peter Brierely, the lead organiser for South London Citizens,
Eighth, Simon Marks, a teacher and community and charity worker in Lewisham,
A fine list of the great and the good, don't you think?