Watch: Mum who had niqab ripped off says she doesn't want to see her attacker jailed

The victim talks to ITV Tyne Tees' Helen Ford Credit: PA

A mother from Wearside says says she doesn't want the man who tore a veil from her face in a racially motivated attack to be jailed.

The woman, who is a Muslim, had her niqab ripped off, in the Bridges Shopping Centre in Sunderland last summer.

Her attacker Peter Scotter, 55, has admitted racially aggravated assault by beating and racially aggravated harassment and is due to be sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court in May.

Peter Scotter's victim is asking a judge not to send him to jail Credit: PA

Scotter, of Beach Street, Roker, Sunderland, has recently undergone cancer treatment.

A judge had warned Scotter, who has 66 previous convictions for 157 offences, including actual bodily harm, breaching a Football Banning Order and racially aggravated criminal damage, he is facing a custodial sentence.

But the victim, a mum-of-four from Sunderland, said she doesn't want to see her attacker jailed and told Tyne Tees she wants to forgive him.

  • Watch Helen Ford's full report here:

The Bridges Shopping Centre where Scotter attacked the woman Credit: ITV Tyne Tees

The court was told both offences were based on Scotter's hostility towards a particular religious group, namely Islam.

He was also heard to tell the victim 'our Britain, you live by our rules,' before coming out with more racist abuse.

The woman, who was with her nine-year-old son at the time of the attack, told us it has had a devastating effect on her.

She said: "I can't be free any more and I can't go out freely and I feel so afraid of going out by myself.

"It's stopped me going to town whenever I wanted to, it's stopped me going out where ever I wanted to as before. I just feel scared if there's nobody with me, I wouldn't even go to the local shop. It's actually stopped me doing what I used to do."