A CANCER patient has been left scared to leave her home after being brutally kicked in the face by a martial arts student.

Amateur kickboxer Talha Tariq, 19, assaulted and racially abused Carol Marr, 55, as she returned from a trip to buy a birthday present for her daughter.

Tariq, a biological sciences student at Stevenson College, was fined £500 at Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday after being found guilty following a two-day trial.

“To say that a 54-year-old ill woman was grabbing you so tightly that as a fit 19-year-old you could not free yourself is unbelievable,” he said.

“I have found you guilty of a nasty assault on a middle-aged woman not in the best health and of abusive racial language.”

He found Tariq guilty of both racial abuse and assault.

“I looked down the road and saw a group of youths. I didn’t approach closely, but asked them if they knew who threw it. Tariq quickly became very aggressive and racist, calling me a “f*****g white bitch”, before pushing me against some railings.

“Another woman witnessed it and she confronted them along with my daughter. They were racially abused too.”

Full Story