'Mummy was sleeping': Children left in shock after Liverpool mum left unconscious in Islamophobic attack

'Mummy was sleeping': Children left in shock after Liverpool mum left unconscious in Islamophobic attack
'Go back to your country,' Kellie Cooke said to the mother of four before beating her unconscious at a McDonald's restaurant in Liverpool.
2 min read
02 May, 2018
A woman was arrested after carrying out an Islamophobic attack [Getty]
The children of a Muslim woman were left crying and begging the police for help after an Islamophobic attack left their mother unconscious in a McDonald's restaurant in Liverpool.

Hamman Hamood, 34, was buying a meal for her family when her attacker, spotted Hamood and her four children.

The perpetrator, Kellie Cooke, 33, began to laugh at Hamood’s accent while she was ordering. Soon after Hamood noticed that she was being mocked, the racist abuse intensified quickly.

According to local newspaper Liverpool Echo, Cooke began to shout to the workers at McDonald's: "She doesn’t know what she’s saying."

The abuser targeted the Hamood's hijab: "Go back to your own country, you shouldn't wear that scarf in this country.

"Why are you not wearing a full face covering, f*** you," she added before she became violent.

As her aggression increased, Cooke began to shout at the victim’s four children, leaving Hamood calling her husband out of sheer fear.

But soon after she hung up from the call, Cooke "tried to grab her headscarf and forcibly remove it."

"The next thing she can remember is waking up dazed," said Melanie Thompson, prosecutor at the Liverpool Magistrates Court.

The ordeal came to an end after a witness on the scene flagged down a police car to request their intervention. Cooke was arrested and later admitted to carrying out the Islamophobic attack, but refused to offer an explanation.

Her children were left terrified and confused, with one of them calling telling the courts: "Mummy was sleeping on the floor."

Islamophobic attacks in the UK have risen in recent years.

Earlier this year, an Egyptian student studying in the UK was killed after sustaining fatal injuries from an attack her family claimed was "racially-aggravated."

Mariam Moustafa Abdel Salam was attacked by ten girls in Nottingham in late February before shortly falling into a coma.

Abdel Salam’s lawyer, Emad Abu Hussein said the hospital had failed to treat her, noting doctors sent the 18-year-old home just five hours after her arrival "despite her severe cerebral haemorrhage."