My pub has been called racist because of its name… the legal battle could close me down – but I’ll NEVER change it

The owner of a historic pub called The Saracen’s Head has told how he was forced into bankruptcy after being targeted by a convicted terrorist because of his ‘racist’ name.

Simon Belsey, 49, fears the 300-year-old inn on the banks of the River Wye in Hereford will have to close after receiving two legal letters from Khalid Baqa.

It is claimed the radical has drawn up a hit list of more than 30 pubs with signs which he claims have caused him ‘concern and fear’ because they ‘incite violence’.

Former lorry driver Mr Belsey told how The Saracen’s Head is one of only three pubs left in the area following the cost of living crisis and Covid had a devastating impact on local traders.

He took over the running of the Grade II listed pub seven months ago with his Portuguese partner Vanda Oliveira, 56, but has been forced to work as a bus driver in the city three days a week because the establishment does not make enough money from the hospitality industry. his own.

Now he insists an expensive legal battle could be the final nail in the coffin for the watering hole affectionately known by locals as The Saggs.

He told MailOnline: ‘It’s a travesty: this man has chosen to live in Britain and now he is trying to change our rich history and culture.

‘The pub’s name dates back to 1705, when clergymen visiting Hereford Cathedral stabled their horses here.

‘It is the head of the Saracen and it will remain the head of the Saracen.’

Baqa, 60, sparked a storm of protest this week after the landlord of another pub, the Saracen’s Head Inn in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, revealed he was being sued over the pub’s “highly offensive” sign.

Baqa has filed a claim in court, demanding £1,850 for the image of an ‘Arab with brown skin and beard’.

Saracen is a term used to describe an Arab or Muslim, especially at the time of the Crusades.

It has since emerged that Baqa plans to expand his fight to 30 other branches.

Now Mr Belsey has revealed he has received two letters from Baqa – with the latest threatening legal action unless the pub changes its name within seven days.

Father-of-one Mr Belsey sought legal advice when the first letter arrived by registered post two months ago accusing him of displaying an offensive pub sign.

It read: ‘I recently noticed that the signage on your pub shows a man wearing a brown turban with the caption ‘The Saracen’s Head’.

“I find this very insulting, xenophobic, racist, incendiary and glorifying violence against a certain type of people and extremely discriminatory.”

Mr Belsey’s lawyer advised him to ignore it – and two weeks ago a second, more threatening letter arrived.

It said: ‘I have no choice but to take legal action if the sign is not removed within seven days.’

An angry Mr Belsey said: ‘The advice is still to ignore it, but if I get something official through the courts that could change things.

“I only took over the pub in May and it’s a struggle. I don’t have the money to fight this. It could close us down.”

Mr Belsey insisted he was determined not to give up and added of the pub’s name: ‘It’s part of Britain’s diverse history, you can’t rewrite it or change it.

“If we give in, how long will it be before people hear, ‘I don’t like your child’s name, change it?’

“My partner is Portuguese, she wouldn’t dream of coming here and imposing her culture on anyone.”

Father-of-seven Baqa, a Muslim from Barking, Essex, has been convicted twice for terrorist offences.

He was working as a tax officer at Hackney Council when he was first arrested ahead of the London Olympics.

In April 2013, he was jailed for two years at the Old Bailey after he was found with 352 computer disks containing terrorist material, including 26 hours of speeches by notorious hate preacher Anwar al-Awlaki.

The court heard that police had found footage of executions, explosive device detonations, the will of one of the London bombers, and footage of the September 11 attacks and jihad fighters stashed in his car and his children’s bedrooms.

Baqa pleaded guilty to two crimes: distributing terrorist publications.

In February 2017, he was arrested when a Heathrow-bound flight he was on was diverted to Stansted Airport and escorted by fighter jets due to an unrelated ‘disruptive passenger’. He was convicted of insurance fraud later that year.

In July 2018, Baqa was jailed for four years and eight months after he was found to have hidden terrorist propaganda in a bookcase and on the roof of a hospital prayer room.

Baqa placed jihadist material, including CDs containing hate speech and extremist pamphlets, in a bookcase and a safe in the chapel of the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.

He also left fifteen audio tracks encouraging radicalization in the prayer room at University College Hospital in Euston.

Baqa printed extremist pamphlets in a copy shop and recruited an “impressionable” 17-year-old boy to help distribute them.

The Old Bailey heard he was caught when a Tube driver found a discarded carrier bag full of leaflets on a train at East Ham station.

He pleaded guilty to five counts of distributing terrorist publications.

Baqa disappeared from view until he filed a ‘claim of money’ form against the Saracens Head Inn in Amersham – which was built in 1530 using timber from old ships.

The name is one of the most popular for pubs in Britain.

In his formal submission, Baqa wrote: ‘As I walked through the area, I was shocked and deeply offended by what I saw.

‘I saw billboards in the pub depicting an Arab/Turkish man with a brown complexion, a beard and a turban, with the text ‘The head of the Saracen’.

‘This raised concerns and fears for me because it was clearly xenophobic, racist and incited to violence against certain people. I immediately complained to the pub and asked for the signage to be removed.”

Baqa later said of the legal action: ‘I’ve always been offended by pub names like this, but I only recently discovered how to challenge them online.

‘It really worries me. It makes me feel unsafe. I have stopped all the terrorism stuff now.”

The landlord of the Amersham pub, Robbie Hayes, 52, said: ‘It’s a complete joke. This pub has been called the Saracen Head for 500 years.

“He just waves his hand. Of course it worries me; With these kind of people you never know.

‘Nobody in this pub is racist, we don’t believe the sign is racist and the name is simply historic.

“We will not allow ourselves to be pressured into changing hundreds of years of history just because some loudmouth wants to cause trouble.”

But Baqa’s claim is just the latest example of pubs in the UK being targeted for historic names.

In a number of cases, owners have been forced to withdraw after a complaint was filed, despite overwhelming support from free speech activists and regulars.

Last month, café The Midget was given a new name after complaints from activists.

The inn in Abingdon was named in the 1970s in honor of the world famous MG sports car built in the Oxfordshire town.

But pub owners Greene King have renamed it The Roaring Raindrop after it was dubbed a ‘disablist hate speech’ and ‘a derogatory slur’ against people with dwarfism by Dr Erin Pritchard, a lecturer in disability studies at Liverpool Hope University, who started a petition calling for collected more than 1,300 signatures.

More than 5,000 people signed a counter-petition, but to no avail. The watering hole reopened on December 13 with a new name which bosses said would allow the pub to be ‘a place where everyone feels welcome’.

In 2022, Greene King also saw action at The Black Bitch in Linlithgow, West Lothian.

The 350-year-old pub is named after a black female greyhound that appears on the town’s heraldic coat of arms and symbolizes a well-known local legend of a hunting dog that saved the life of its master.

Just four years ago, a statue commemorating the ‘black bitch’ was unveiled in the center of the city.

The pub was renamed The Willow Tree, despite a petition gathering more than 11,000 signatures and hundreds of people protesting outside the pub.