LONDON: The UK Prosecution Service has dropped allegations linking the UK’s Nationwide Safety Act and overseas energy provisions to the case of former accountability adviser Mirza Shahzad Akbar and former army officer and YouTuber Adil Raja — who had been each violently attacked late final yr at their houses.
The case stems from a collection of coordinated assaults in late December 2025 and early January 2026 involving Akbar and Raja at their houses in Oxford and Chesham.
In an important improvement thus far, on Friday on the Previous Bailey, the prosecution knowledgeable the decide that it was abandoning any reliance on provisions linked to the Nationwide Safety Act or allegations regarding a overseas energy, considerably narrowing the prosecution’s case.
The prosecution advised the decide that the defendants had been allegedly “employed thugs” and that the assaults had been “orchestrated”, indicating that others might have been concerned in organising the alleged conspiracy.
Nevertheless, when the decide requested whether or not the Nationwide Safety Act ingredient had been dropped as a result of the defendants didn’t know they had been performing on behalf of a overseas energy, the prosecutor replied that this gave the impression to be the case.
Six of eight defendants appeared on the Previous Bailey and pleaded not responsible. One defendant submitted an software searching for dismissal of the case, whereas one other refused to attend the listening to.
Louis Regan, 26, his father Mark Regan, 53, each of Birmingham, Karl Blackbird, 41, and Liam McGarry, 26, every denied conspiracy to assault Akbar and inflicting him precise bodily hurt.
The daddy and son, Blackbird, from Bedworth, and one other defendant, Clark McCaulay, 39, from Coventry, additionally denied the identical cost in relation to Raja.
Additionally charged is Dylan Martin, 33, who denied tried arson on Akbar’s residence, and possession of a revolver, linked to an incident in Cambridgeshire on New Yr’s Eve final yr.
Asid Afsar, 40, of Birmingham, and Doneto Brammer, 22, of London, who’re additionally charged in reference to the incidents, will enter pleas at a later date, the courtroom heard.
Akbar was assaulted at his Cambridge residence after a masked man requested for him by identify earlier than repeatedly punching him, leaving him with facial accidents together with a damaged nostril.
Across the similar time, two males tried to pressure entry into Raja’s residence in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, though he was not current.
Per week later, an try was additionally made to set fireplace to Akbar’s property. Due to the focused nature of the incidents, the investigation has been led by Counter Terrorism Policing.
The choice to take away any Nationwide Safety Act or overseas energy ingredient means the prosecution will now not depend on the Nationwide Safety Act 2023 or the “overseas energy situation” — it would subsequently not ask the jury to search out that the alleged assaults had been carried out for, on behalf of, beneath the path of, with help from, or for the good thing about a overseas energy.
Any state-linked aggravating ingredient is not going to type a part of the prosecution case.
Below part 31 of the Nationwide Safety Act 2023, the overseas energy situation can embrace conduct instigated, directed, funded or assisted by a overseas energy, in addition to conduct meant to learn one.
The withdrawal might point out that prosecutors don’t contemplate the foreign-power allegation sufficiently supported, admissible or essential to pursue. CPS guidelines require a practical prospect of conviction on each cost or ingredient superior.
Each Raja and Akbar have known as on the police to search out the actual components behind the assaults. The police have thus far discovered no proof of who ordered the assaults.
All of the defendants had been remanded into custody. The Regans, Blackbird, McGarry and McCaulay face trial on January 12, 2027, at Nottingham Crown Courtroom. Martin and Brammer face trial on the similar courtroom on March 8.
