A former advisor to Matt Hancock drank a bottle of wine before launching a racist attack on a taxi driver after a boozy night out in Soho, a court has heard.
Damon Poole, 31, who worked with Hancock during Covid, assaulted Riyad Islam on 17 May 2024 at Shaftesbury Avenue, London.
Poole denies being a racist and said he drank so much beer and wine before the incident that it has no memory of it.
But the 31-year-old previously entered an early guilty plea to one charge of racially aggravated assault by beating.
The consultant, who was said to be earning a ‘considerable amount’ of money said he had a ‘very stressful day at work.’
Damon Poole, 31, who worked with Hancock during Covid, assaulted Riyad Islam on 17 May 2024 at Shaftesbury Avenue, London (pictured outside Downing Street in 2019)
Poole entered a guilty plea to the charge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, where he was sentenced
The victim Mr Islam was described in court as doing a ‘good job’ as a taxi driver when he was hit with an open hand by Poole, who has recently stopped working in PR.
Poole previously received a fixed penalty for drunk and disorderly conduct when he was a Philosophy and Politics student at Durham University.
Wearing a dark navy blue suit and glasses, the 31-year-old appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court to be sentenced on Monday.
A probation worker who had interviewed Poole told the court: ‘It’s been quite hard for him to face what’s happened.
‘He tells me on the day in question it was another very stressful day at work, it appears that the stressful days have been rolling in one into the other for several years.
‘It was a Friday, he’d left work with some work colleagues and had a couple of pints at a bar in London Bridge.
‘They’d arranged to have dinner together so having finished at London Bridge, got the tube to Soho and had dinner with work colleagues.
‘He told me that he specifically remembers feeling particularly low, almost melancholy, as he walked into the dinner.
‘He went onto tell me that he’d consumed, that night, far too much alcohol.
‘He’d had over a bottle of wine during the course of dinner and everything becomes very blurry after that.
‘He has no memory of the incident, except being in a police van and then at Wandsworth Police Station.’
The probation officer said that Poole denied being racist or homophobic.
The victim Mr Islam was described in court as doing a ‘good job’ as a taxi driver when he was hit with an open hand by Poole, who has recently stopped working in PR
Poole (pictured in 2019) told probation officers he had ‘no memory’ of the incident and denied being a racist
He continued: ‘He was quizzed about his feelings about different cultures in the UK – he very strongly said to me that that is what makes up the UK, what makes it such a wonderful place.
‘I don’t believe that he is a racist; I don’t believe that he is homophobic.
‘You probably heard he is working as a director of a PR consultancy firm and is earning a considerable amount of money, working very hard.’
He added that there ‘was violence involved – an open hand involved against this taxi driver.
‘Mr Poole recognises the taxi driver, or anybody, shouldn’t receive that sort of behaviour from anyone – it’s totally unacceptable.’
Magistrate Dr Lynn Gailey accepted the probation’s recommendations, telling Poole: ‘It is quite unusual to go out of the guidelines, on this occasion we are going to go out of the guidelines.’
She said that Poole would receive a ‘heavy fine’ and asked for information about his earnings.
Ms Gabrielle Watts, representing Poole, said that he made ‘about £5,000 a month, liquid, after taxes.’
The court heard the probation officer clarify that Poole ‘used to earn just over £90,000 a year’ but ‘hasn’t got a lot of savings.’
Turning to sentencing, Ms Gailey said: ‘We’ve taken everything into consideration that has been said by your advocate, by your probation, by the bundle that we read – and we do hope that you will not be in this position again.
‘We see the remorse and we have read the letter you sent to Mr Islam.
‘We are going to ask you to pay compensation of £100 to Mr Islam.
‘He was doing a good job, we depend on taxi drivers and he didn’t deserve what you did to him.’
Ms Gailey said Poole was fined and not given a community order on account of ‘working with the police’, but that the fine was increased ‘because of the racial uplift’.
The PR consultant was fined a total of £1,172 having been given full credit for an early guilty plea.
He was also ordered to pay a £469 victim surcharge and £85 in court costs – as well as £100 in compensation to his victim Mr Islam.
The total sum of £1,827 will have to be paid by 26 November.
Addressing him as he left the dock, Ms Gailey told Poole that she didn’t ‘want or expect to see (him) back here’.
Poole, of Battersea High Street, south west London, admitted one charge of racially aggravated assault by beating.
