A pro-Palestinian activist who followed and pestered Matt Lucas as he tried to leave the London Underground has lost his job over the incident.
Thomas Bourne, 39, an Islamic convert who uses the social media handle ‘White British Muslim’, approached the Jewish comedian, 51, last month after spotting him on an escalator.
Bourne filmed himself harassing Lucas seemingly solely on the basis of his Jewish heritage – only for the film he posted online to attract more criticism than approval.
Today it emerged that he has now lost his job as a fundraising consultant as a direct result of the incident.
Bourne gave an interview to sympathetic online publisher PoliticsJoe, in which he seemed unrepentant about the harassment, and appeared to suggest Mr Lucas was responsible for starting the altercation for disapproving his clothes.
He said: ‘I was going up the escalator and looked to my side and saw someone giving me an uncomfortable even hostile look and I realised it was Matt Lucas.
‘My instant reaction – as anyone’s would be who was going to confront someone – was to pull out my camera phone and shout “Free Palestine! Free Palestine!”
‘As a result of that video and a subsequent Daily Mail article I actually lost my job.’
The clip showed Bourne continuing to harass the TV comic by asking ‘you don’t like what I’m wearing, do you?’ – referring to his keffiyeh.
He then goes on to ask the comic, ‘You’ve got a problem with Palestinians, Matt?’ to which ambushed Mr Lucas responds a simple, ‘No’.
As Mr Lucas walks away, Bourne accuses him of being a ‘zionist’ – but the activist claimed he was trying ‘to be the bigger man’ ‘by ‘walking away’ after the altercation.
At one point during the interview Bourne was asked: ‘How aware of Matt Lucas’s background were you prior to that altercation?’
Bourne responded: ‘Absolutely no awareness of his background at all except I knew he was in a show quite a few years ago, Little Britain. He was also in Come Fly With Me and when I was really little… he was in a show called Shooting Stars.’
He added: ‘That’s literally all I knew about him, I didn’t know anything else about him at all. I mean I don’t know who would.’
When a friend told him the video was trending on Twitter and that Mr Lucas was Jewish, Bourne told PoliticsJoe: ‘My heart absolutely sunk and I thought “Oh no, this is not good” because I could already picture in my head how this could be framed and how this could be interpreted, and the ramifications around that.
‘So I immediately deleted the video knowing this could have bad ramifications.’
He added: ‘I’m being labelled as an anti-semite and that simply isn’t true. The whole interaction with Matt Lucas was nothing to do with religion or anything like that because I simply didn’t know he was Jewish at the time.’
He said he comes from a Jewish background, including Jewish cousins, and was ‘really worried’ how the incident would be ‘interpreted’.
After the video went viral last month the Mail investigated Bourne’s background and subsequently revealed that he has become a well-known face amongst pro-Palestinian protest groups in London, often being pictured at rallies and at one time with Jeremy Corbyn.
We revealed that he was born Thomas Edward Oliver Heather and chose his new surname as a tribute to the fictional spy and assassin Jason Bourne, played by Matt Damon in the film franchise.
The wannabe action hero, according to those who know him, is described as a ‘clown’ who ‘leaves a trail of destruction and chaos’.
An estranged family member told the Daily Mail: ‘It does not surprise me that he has done something stupid. If I ever see him again, it will be too soon.’
Following the Palestine Action ban last summer, which has since been ruled as unlawful, Mr Bourne vowed to continue the group’s work.
Campaigning outside the Royal Courts of Justice as the ban was enforced in July, the protester said that he would ‘absolutely’ continue his support for the group, even if it became proscribed.
He said: ‘Absolutely, with all of my heart. I am sure everyone here would also. No one is listening to us and the government is proscribing them.’
After the clip of Mr Bourne accosting Mr Lucas went viral, he quickly deleted his Instagram accounts.
