Two men are to face court accused of targeting Jewish people in Stamford Hill, north London, with prosecutors alleging they approached, harassed, and filmed members of the community for antisemitic TikTok videos.
Adam Bedoui, 20, and Abdelkader Amir Bousloub, 21, both of West Drayton, Hillingdon, have each been charged with religiously aggravated intentional harassment and intentional harassment. The charges relate to incidents in which Jewish individuals in Stamford Hill were allegedly approached on the street, subjected to harassment, and recorded for social media content.
Charges and Allegations
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) brought the charges under two pieces of legislation. The first, section 31 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, covers religiously aggravated intentional harassment. This offence mirrors standard harassment but carries a higher maximum sentence when prosecutors can prove that the offender acted with hostility towards the victim’s religion. The second charge, under section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986, addresses intentional harassment, alarm, or distress caused by threatening, abusive, or insulting words or behaviour.
Religiously aggravated offences are treated more seriously by the courts, which have a duty under the Sentencing Act 2020 to consider any religious hostility as an aggravating factor when determining sentence. The distinction is significant: where religious hostility is established, judges can impose a more severe penalty than for a similar non-aggravated offence.
The allegations centre on behaviour that prosecutors say went beyond ordinary harassment. The defendants are accused of deliberately targeting members of Stamford Hill’s Hasidic Jewish community, the largest concentration of Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews in Europe, estimated to number around 15,000 and growing. The area is known for its high proportion of Jewish residents; in one postcode sector, N16 5RR, figures indicate that 68 per cent of residents are Jewish, with a notably younger demographic profile.
Prosecutor’s Statement
Huw Rogers, chief crown prosecutor for CPS Direct – the CPS’s out‑of‑hours service that handles cases when suspects cannot be released on bail – announced the decision to charge. “The Crown Prosecution Service has decided to charge Adam Bedoui, 20, and Abdelkader Amir Bousloub, 21, with religiously aggravated intentional harassment and intentional harassment following an incident where Jewish people in Stamford Hill were being approached, harassed and filmed,” he said.
Rogers, who joined the CPS in 2004 and was appointed to lead CPS Direct in March 2026, said the service had concluded there was sufficient evidence to bring charges and that a prosecution was in the public interest. The CPS worked closely with the Metropolitan Police, which conducted the investigation.
Bedoui and Bousloub were due to appear at Thames Magistrates’ Court on Saturday, 9 May 2026. The CPS emphasised that its role is to assess whether there is enough evidence for a criminal court to consider, not to determine guilt.
Context and Previous Incidents
The case is the latest in a series of controversies involving social media and antisemitism in Stamford Hill. In July 2023, a TikTok user who filmed himself entering synagogues and approaching members of the community was banned from the platform after the Campaign Against Antisemitism intervened. The current allegations follow a similar pattern, with the defendants accused of filming individuals for antisemitic TikTok videos.
Broader research has highlighted the role of recommender algorithms in spreading hateful material. A report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that TikTok’s algorithm can expose UK minors to antisemitic content, including conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial, and neo‑Nazi imagery. The report noted that stickers, sounds, and comment sections can act as pathways to more overt material.
In a separate but related incident in Stamford Hill, a third man, James Agius, 50, has also been charged with religiously aggravated harassment and using threatening words or behaviour following an alleged racial abuse incident on a bus.
Data from the CPS shows a rising trend in hate crime referrals. In the quarter from July to September 2025, the CPS received 4,358 hate crime flagged referrals – a 14.7 per cent increase on the previous quarter. Of those, 193 were recorded as religiously motivated. Over the year to December 2024, the CPS prosecuted 14,657 defendants for offences flagged as hate crimes, achieving a charge rate of 87.4 per cent and a conviction rate of 86.1 per cent.
Under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, it is an offence to use threatening words or behaviour, or to display threatening written material, with the intent to stir up religious hatred. That Act includes a freedom of expression defence, ensuring that discussion, criticism, or expressions of antipathy towards religions are not prohibited as long as they do not incite hatred. The current charges, however, relate to harassment rather than directly to stirring up hatred, meaning the Attorney General’s consent is not required for prosecution.
The CPS has defined a hate incident as one where the victim or any other person believes it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on protected characteristics such as religion. When such an incident crosses the boundary of criminality, it becomes a hate crime. Religious hatred is defined in law as hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief.
