The landlord of an historic pub called The Saracen’s Head has told how he could be forced out of business after being targeted by a convicted terrorist over its ‘racist’ name.
Simon Belsey, 49, fears the 300-year-old hostelry which sits on the banks of the River Wye in Hereford will have to shut after he received two legal letters from jihadist Khalid Baqa.
It’s claimed the radical has drawn up a hit list of more than 30 pubs with signs he says have instilled ‘worry and fear’ in him because they ‘incite violence’.
Former truck driver Mr Belsey told how The Saracen’s Head is one of just three pubs remaining in the area after the cost-of-living crisis and Covid had a devastating impact on local traders.
He took over running the Grade I-listed pub just seven months ago with his Portuguese partner Vanda Oliveira, 56, but has been forced to work as a bus driver in the city three days a week because the establishment doesn’t make enough money on its own.
Now he insists an expensive legal battle could be the final nail in the coffin for the watering hole known affectionately by locals as The Saggs.
He told : ’It is a travesty – this man has chosen to live in the UK and now he is trying to change our rich history and culture.
‘The pub’s name goes back to 1705, clergymen visiting Hereford Cathedral used to stable their horses here.
‘It’s The Saracen’s Head and it will stay The Saracen’s Head.’
Baqa, 60, sparked a storm of protest this week after the landlord of another pub called the Saracen’s Head Inn in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, revealed he was being sued over the pub’s ‘deeply offensive’ sign.
Baqa has filed a county court claim demanding £1,850 for its depiction of a ‘brown-skinned bearded Arab’.
Saracen is a term used to describe an Arab or Muslim, particularly at the time of the Crusades.
It’s since emerged that Baqa plans to extend his fight to 30 other establishments.
Now Mr Belsey has revealed he has received two letters from Baqa – with the latest threatening legal action unless the pub changes its name within seven days.
Father-of-one Mr Belsey took legal advice when the first letter arrived by recorded delivery two months ago, accusing him of displaying an offensive pub sign.
It said: ‘It has recently come to my attention that your pub signage depicts a brown turbaned male captioned The Saracen’s Head.
‘I find this highly offensive, xenophobic, racist, inciting and glorifying violence against a certain type of people and extremely discriminatory.’
Mr Belsey’s solicitor advised him to ignore it – then a second, more threatening letter arrived two weeks ago.
It said: ‘I have no alternatives but to commence legal action if the sign is not removed in the next seven days.’
Angry Mr Belsey said: ‘The advice is still to ignore it but if I get something official through the courts that could change things.
‘I only took over the pub in May and it’s a struggle. I don’t have the money to challenge this. It could close us down.’
Mr Belsey insisted he was determined not to back down, adding of the pub’s name: ‘It’s part of Britain’s diverse history, you can’t rewrite it or change it.
‘If we give in, how long will it be before people are told: “I don’t like the name of your child, change it?”
‘My partner is Portuguese, she wouldn’t dream of coming here and forcing her culture on anyone.’
Father-of-seven Baqa, a Muslim from Barking, Essex, has twice been convicted of terrorism offences.
He was working as a revenue officer at Hackney Borough Council when he was first arrested in the lead up to the London Olympics.
In April 2013 he was jailed for two years at the Old Bailey after he was found with 352 computer discs containing terrorist material including 26 hours of speeches by the notorious hate preacher Anwar al-Awlaki.
The court heard police found footage of executions, detonations of explosive devices, the last will and testament of one of the London bombers, footage of the 9/11 attacks and jihadi fighters stashed away in his car and his children’s bedrooms.
Baqa pleaded guilty to two offences of disseminating terrorist publications.
In April 2017, he was arrested when a Heathrow-bound flight he was on was diverted to Stansted Airport and escorted by fighter jets before being convicted of insurance fraud.
In July 2018, Baqa was handed a jail term of four years and eight months after he was found to have hidden terrorist propaganda in a bookcase and a roof void of a hospital prayer room.
Baqa placed jihadist material, including CDs of hate speeches and extremist leaflets, in a bookcase and a vault in the chapel at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.
He also left 15 audio tracks encouraging radicalisation in the prayer room at University College Hospital in Euston.
Baqa printed extremist leaflets at a copying shop and recruited an ‘impressionable’ boy of 17 to help distribute them.
The Old Bailey heard he was caught when a Tube driver found a discarded carrier bag full of leaflets on a train at East Ham station
He pleaded guilty to five counts of dissemination of terrorist publications.
Baqa fell out of sight until filing a ‘claim of money’ form against The Saracen’s Head in Amersham – which was build in 1530 using timber from old ships.
The name – which is among the most popular in the UK – is said to be linked to the Crusades and seen as a sign of respect for the fighting qualities of enemies.
In his formal submission Baqa wrote: ‘While walking through the area I was shocked and deeply offended by what I saw.
‘I saw pub signage depicting a brown-skinned bearded Arab/Turk male with a turban and captioned ‘The Saracen’s Head’.
‘This instilled worry and fear in me since it was clearly xenophobic, racist and inciting violence to certain people. I immediately complained to the pub and requested the signage be removed.’
Baqa later said of the legal action: ‘I’ve always been offended by pub names like these but I’ve only recently discovered how I can challenge them online.
‘It genuinely makes me anxious. It makes me feel unsafe. I’ve stopped all the terrorism stuff now.’
The Amersham pub’s landlord Robbie Hayes, 52, said: ‘It’s a complete joke. This pub has been called The Saracen’s Head for 500 years.
‘He’s just chancing his hand. Of course it worries me you never know with people like this.
‘No one at this pub is racist, we don’t believe the sign is racist and the name is simply historic.
‘We won’t be pushed around and change hundreds of years of history just because some loudmouth wants to cause trouble.’
But Baqa’s claim is just the latest where pubs across the UK have been targeted over historic names.
In a number of cases owners have been forced to back down when a complaint has been lodged – despite overwhelming support from free speech campaigners and regulars.
Last month a pub called The Midget was renamed after complaints by activists.
The hostelry in Abingdon was named in the 1970’s in honour of the world-famous
MG sports car which was built in the Oxfordshire town.
But pub owners Greene King rebranded it The Roaring Raindrop after the moniker was labelled ‘disablist hate speech’ and ‘a derogatory slur’ to people with dwarfism.by Dr Erin Pritchard, a disabilities studies lecturer at Liverpool Hope University, who started a petition that gathered more than 1,300 signatures.
More than 5,000 people signed a counter-petition but to no avail, as the watering hole reopened on December 13 with the new name that bosses said would ensure the pub ‘can be a place where everyone feels welcome’.
In 2022 Greene King also took action at The Black Bitch in Linlithgow, West Lothian.
The 350-year-old pub was named after a black, female greyhound that features on the town’s heraldic crest and symbolises a well-known local legend of a hunting dog that saved its master’s life.
A statue commemorating the ‘black bitch’ was unveiled in the centre of the town just four years ago.
The pub was renamed The Willow Tree despite a petition gathering 11,000 signatures and hundreds of people turning out to protest outside the pub.