Dear Baba G and Bristol community,

The man who has loved and fed this community for more than 10 years is finally calling on your support. 

On 27th April 2022 after 2 years of trying to get a chance to prove his innocence, Shad was forced to plead guilty to a racially aggravated public order offence under the threat of going to prison if he went to trial to prove his innocence and present evidence of police fabrication, although he maintained from day 1 that he never used the words the police later added to the case file (and we have the evidence to prove this). 

This story all began in the 1st month of lockdown when he reopened his vegan/vegetarian community focused cafe Baba Ganoush Kitchen to feed front line workers and deliver food to those shielding and self isolating. When he was the passenger in the work van collecting stock an aggressive traffic warden forced him to move the vehicle although he kept insisting he was not the driver and couldn't drive it as he didn't hold a licence. 

After all this time battling through court cases and trying to get local legal firms to fight our case we never had a chance to have our evidence heard in court and Shad was sentenced entirely on the fabrications of the police case. The stress of this made an already very unwell man seriously ill but he never stopped coming to work to feed the community he loves so much. To make matters worse, Shad was due to have urgent surgery and emergency consultations at the hospital at the same time as this court case and although the judge insisted he would have the same medical care in prison he has now been 3 weeks with no pain medication at all and suffers from permanent migraines and severe nerve pain due to crushed spinal discs in his neck. He has also been found to have dangerously high blood pressure which has been left untreated no matter how much we fight from the outside to get him medical attention that he urgently needs. We were advised by probation and many legal experts that this was not a crime which would warrant more than a community order or a maximum of a suspended sentence. We are therefore launching an urgent appeal against this sentence to get Shad back to the community to feed everyone his famous food made with love. 

If you can support us at all with the costs of this it would have a huge impact on the health and safety of a much loved member of the Bristol community, his family and his customers. We really appreciate that these are hard times but every little really will help us. 

Peace and love as always. Baba Ganoush Kitchen