Brit shopkeeper jailed for blackmailing Muslim friend

London, July 16 (ANI): A shopkeeper who extorted thousands of pounds from a Muslim friend by threatening to tell police she sympathised with terrorists, has been found guilty of three counts of blackmail and three counts of deception by a Truro Crown Court.

According to The Telegraph, Mary-Nona Sturges, 54, was jailed for four years after being found guilty of forcing student Nabilah Hussain, 21, to hand over at least 3,200 pounds by claiming to have a recording of a row the pair had about the 2005 terrorist attacks in London.

Sturges claimed that another friend had taped Hussain as saying "the British deserve what they get" and that the tape would go to police unless she was given money to pay off the person who had made the recording.

Struges has been ordered to pay Hussain's family 3,200 pounds as compensation and legal costs of 8,500 pounds.

During the three-week trial, Hussain told the jury she had no memory of making the alleged remark but that Sturges had insisted she had.

Hussain said she had become friends with Sturges when she was a student at Dartington College, near Totnes, and worked in a bistro next to Sturges's shop which sells antique teddy bears. (ANI)