When far-right riots sprang up in towns and cities in parts of the UK more than two weeks ago causing serious damage, endangering lives and injuring dozens of people, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, promised rapid sentencing for those who took part.
This promise appears to be being fulfilled, with 1,117 arrests and 677 charges brought against rioters as of Friday afternoon – a number that is expected to rise in the coming weeks.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said extra lawyers had been brought in to bolster what it described as a “24/7 out-of-hours charging service”, which means that all day, every day, courts across the country are filled with rioters facing the consequences of their actions.
Here are five things we have learned from the riot courts so far.
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1. Young boys and girls in the dock
Perhaps unexpectedly, some of those facing the most serious charges have been under 18. Teenagers, through inexperience and boundless energy, were some of the more persistent rioters and could be seen later in the evening outlasting their drunken, cocaine-fuelled elders smashing things, setting fires and throwing missiles at police.
Two 12-year-old boys and a 13-year-old girl appeared in court this week, with one boy accused of taking part in disorder in Manchester on 31 July and then spotted throwing stones at police in Rotherham a few days later. A Manchester magistrates court judge told him: “You are the first person I have dealt with to have been involved in two. It’s time to stop letting your mum down now. You are to do one thing – do as you’re told.”
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2. Keyboard warriors get their comeuppance
They may not have physically taken part in the violence, but those who stoked it online have not been spared prison. James Aspin, 34, from Blyth became the first armchair offender to plead guilty, having posted a TikTok video designed to stir up racial hatred. Julie Sweeney, 53, who lived a “quiet, sheltered” life, was jailed for 15 months for posting a comment on Facebook that said: “Blow the mosque up with the adults in it.”
Despite apologising and deleting an offensive post before police got involved, Lee Dunn, 51, from Cumbria, was jailed on Monday for eight weeks after admitting posting pictures with captions that prosecutors said risked worsening community tensions.
Janet Potter, deputy chief crown prosecutor for CPS North West, said: “This conviction should be a stark reminder to so-called keyboard warriors: online actions have consequences.”
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3. The first ‘riot’ charges begin to emerge
A 15-year-old boy became the first to be charged with rioting on Thursday, after previously pleading guilty to violent disorder and the burglary of a vape shop. The boy, who cannot be named due to his age, was landed with the riot charge after further evidence emerged of his role in the Sunderland disorder, prosecutors said. Also related to Sunderland’s violence, a 32-year-old man pleaded not guilty on Friday to a riot charge.
He was charged under section 1 of the Public Order Act 1986, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. Violent disorder, the charge faced by the rioters convicted so far, has a maximum prison sentence of five years.
The CPS warned that more riot charges were likely to follow as police continued to process the large volume of evidence.
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4. Hefty sentences
More than 100 years’ worth of prison sentences have been handed out so far, some to those who ordinarily would have been spared jail, assuaging any notion that offenders would get a slap on the wrist.
Burglary as a first offence would usually land the perpetrator a suspended sentence, but looting a shop that has been smashed up by rioters means prison, as 22-year-old Ellis Wharton found out, after being caught trying to take a computer monitor from the burnt-out Spellow Hub library on County Road in Liverpool.
Despite his barrister’s pleas to spare him jail, with no evidence he rioted, the Liverpool crown court judge said that “those who deliberately participate in disturbances of the magnitude that have occurred recently must expect to receive severe sentences”.
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5. First-time offenders
A large proportion of the rioters are experiencing the court system for the first time, having been previously law-abiding citizens. Many barristers defending their clients have described how they were “caught up” or “got carried away”.
One of those was 69-year-old William Nelson Morgan, the oldest rioter convicted. The retired welder and widower with three grownup children had stayed out of trouble his whole life before he was arrested during the Liverpool riot then sentenced to two years and eight months, which the judge said was “very sad indeed”.
Dylan Carey, 26, will miss the birth of his child while he serves a prison sentence for his part in the Southport riot, with his barrister telling the judge: “It has been his first time in custody. The defendant told me this morning through teary eyes that he has never been so frightened in his life.”
