Trio punished for town centre assault but hate crime charges dropped

Community orders and a conditional discharge have been handed out over a Maidenhead town centre assault – after hate crime charges were dropped by prosecutors, writesAdrian Williams.

Lia Vaisanen, 20, of Bath Road, Maidenhead; Riley Moore, 20, of Malvern Road, Maidenhead; and Rhys Cox, 21, of Mansell Road, Acton, were sentenced for offences committed in 2023.

At about 1am on February 5, the trio attacked a group of four women at the junction of Queen Street and Broadway.

At a sentencing at Reading Crown Court on Friday, January 30, the court heard one victim was punched to the back of the head and kicked twice in the body.

Prosecutor Khalid Khan said the other women were hurt while ‘trying to protect their friend who was lying unresponsive on the road.’

All the victims suffered bruising and swelling, two were concussed and one was knocked unconscious.

Thames Valley Police charged Vaisanen, Moore, and Cox with three counts each of assault by beating and one count each of assault leading to actual bodily harm (ABH).

Vaisanen was additionally charged with possessing a weapon in a public place and criminal damage.

The court heard she advanced with a glass bottle before the attack, ‘looking aggressive’.

All three were also initially charged with ‘using threatening words or behaviour to stir up religious or sexual orientation hatred.’

But the court heard that the hate crime charge had been dropped.

Though the violence had been preceded by ‘offensive’ language by the trio, defendants ‘always denied’ claims of homophobic slurs, said their barristers.

Indeed, Madeleine Pinto, legal counsel for Cox and Moore, highlighted how the pair had both previously faced discrimination relating to sexual orientation and gender expression.

The trio do not deny the attack and have shown ‘insight and remorse’, their legal teams said.

Though Judge Neil Millard called the attack ‘repellent and thuggish’, he acknowledged that the three had worked hard to turn their lives around in the past three years.

“It’s quite clear from everything I’ve seen and heard that you are not the same people you were then,” said Judge Millard.

Vaisanen was given a community order lasting 18 months, Cox received one for 12 months and Moore got a conditional discharge.

They were also instructed to pay a £100 contribution to prosecution costs.

Prior to this, Vaisanen’s counsel, George Penny, suggested the defendants should not face steep costs – saying these were ‘of the Crown’s own making,’ having sought to charge them with a crime that could not be brought to court.

After the sentencing, a Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said: “Charges for stirring up hatred were not taken forward on the day of trial. The defendants’ guilty pleas that had already been entered, together with those entered on the day of trial, provided the court with adequate sentencing powers to deal with the matter.”