Aggression Arguing Conflict Stress Fight Four men engaged in religiously-aggravated harassment of and violence against a church-going co-worker on a number of occasions between 2014 and 2015, York Crown Court has heard. The teenager had been working as an apprentice with Direct Interior Solutions, a shopfitting firm managed by one of the defendants
On one occasion, the Catholic teenager was “crucified” by his older colleagues, who tied him to a square of plasterboard with duct tape and forced him onto a rudimentary cross, suspending him a metre above the ground.
On another occasion crosses and other symbols were drawn on the youth in his sleep.
“The crown say the acts of drawing on [the teen] were assaults and these assaults were aggravated religiously,” the prosecuting barrister Austin Newman said.
Other episodes in what Mr Newman called a “campaign of sustained bullying” included an assault with a lit aerosol flame.
Prayers for kidnapped Catholic in India
Catholics in India are praying for the swift release of a 40-year-old Catholic aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan.
Kolkata’s Archbishop Thomas D’Souza celebrated Mass and offered “special prayers for the safe release and return of Ms Judith D’Souza” at a ceremony in the city’s Sebastian Chapal.
“Tomorrow being Sunday, I have instructed all our parishes to pray for the safety and release of Judith D’Souza during the Sunday Mass,” Dr D’Souza said.
An Indian Catholic, Ms D’Souza had been working as a senior technical adviser in Kabul for the Aga Khan Development Network since July 2015. Kidnapped on her way home from work on June 9, she is believed to have been abducted by a crime cartel specialised in abductions of foreign nationals.