Hamit Coskun was convicted last June of a religiously aggravated public order offence after he held a flaming copy of the Islamic text aloft outside the Turkish consulate on 13 February 2025.

The 51-year-old successfully appealed against his conviction andit was overturned by Mr Justice Bennathan at Southwark Crown Court in October.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has launched an appeal against that decision. Its barristers told a hearing on Tuesday that the judge was wrong to find that Coskun's behaviour was not "disorderly".

David Perry KC, for the CPS, told the court: "Burning a book in a residential or commercial part of central London, between Knightsbridge and Hyde Park, is in itself disorderly and even more so when the book is a holy text, whatever the religion."

In written submissions, Perry added that Coskun's actions "did not involve an exercise of legitimate freedom of expression" and instead "crossed the border into criminal conduct".

The CPS asked the High Court to send the case back to the crown court for reconsideration.

Comment: As usual, the Establishment come out in favour of the death cult known as islam.  This country is British, if Mr Coksun wants to burn a quoran he should be allowed to do so.  If muslims don't like it they should go somewhere else.