Throwing an egg : 16 months...

Record[s] of convictions after the riots in the United Kingdom

Source : The Epoch Times

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (r) watches CCTV screens with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley in the engineering room of the Metropolitan Police Command and Control Special Operations Room at Metropolitan Police Headquarters Lambeth police in London, August 9, 2024. (TOBY MELVILLE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

The record of convictions after the riots in the United Kingdom

By Germain de Lupiac

August 20, 2024 08:59 Updated: August 22, 2024 19:20

The riots, the most serious in the United Kingdom since 2011, affected dozens of towns and villages in England and Northern Ireland at the beginning of August, following the knife attack which cost lives to three little girls on July 29.

Following rumors about the suspect, presented as a Muslim asylum seeker, mosques and places where asylum seekers were accommodated were targeted for a week. This stabbing occurred against a backdrop of an increase in knife violence in the United Kingdom.

Following these riots, the British government promised to sanction the rioters with a firm and rapid legal response, including against comments made online. Law enforcement made more than 1,000 arrests and more than 500 indictments, and trials followed one another, broadcast online and on television.

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Rioters aged 11 to 69 face justice

Involving children, teenagers and the elderly, the court appearances and convictions revealed the very varied profiles of the rioters, whom Prime Minister Keir Starmer described as a “gang of thugs”.

At Basingstoke Magistrates' Court, a 13-year-old girl faces prison for punching and kicking the door of a hotel housing asylum seekers on July 31 in the neighboring town of Aldershot, in southern England.

An 11-year-old boy has been charged with possessing petrol bombs in Belfast, while two 12-year-olds have pleaded guilty to assault for throwing projectiles at police officers in the north of England. Around fifty minors were charged.

Kieron Gatenby, 19, was sentenced to 16 months in a young offenders' institution after being filmed throwing an egg during riots in Hartlepool (northeast). All ages are affected, a 69-year-old man has been accused of vandalism in Liverpool, with years in prison at stake.

Years in prison for participating in the riots

In a courtroom at Sheffield court (northern England), Jake Turton, 38, is being prosecuted for supplying “wooden objects” then used as weapons by rioters who attacked a hotel housing asylum seekers in the nearby town of Rotherham. He risks spending “years” in prison.

At the beginning of August, the first prison sentences were handed down for three men who had taken part in the clashes in Southport and Liverpool. One, tried at Liverpool Criminal Court, received three years in prison, notably for attacking a member of the emergency services. A man was sentenced to 26 months in prison for throwing a vacuum cleaner through a window. Another, three years in prison, for having seized a policeman's baton.

An 18-year-old man who threw a stone at a police officer outside a Darlington mosque has been jailed for 18 months. A 26-year-old man, whose pregnant wife cried at the hearing, for throwing projectiles including paint towards the police in Southport, also 18 months in prison.

Some 273 of those charged will have their cases examined by the prosecutor's office in England and Wales, which deals with the "most serious" cases, he said. They face prison sentences of up to 10 years for the most serious offense, namely rioting, warned Chief Prosecutor Stephen Parkinson.

Prison for online publications

After the thugs, the British justice system harshly condemned those accused of having “stoked up” the riots online.

Jordan Parlor, 28, was sentenced to 20 months in prison, at least half of which must be served in custody, over Facebook posts calling for an attack on a hotel housing asylum seekers.

Another 26-year-old man, father of three children, was sentenced even more harshly to three years and two months in prison for having called, in a post published on social networks, to burn down hotels housing asylum seekers. A 55-year-old woman was arrested for posting a message on social media in which she mentioned false information about the identity of the suspect.

Social networks “are not a lawless zone”, insisted the new Prime Minister Keir Starmer on August 9, promising that the government would “look into” the subject, after having already warned the networks in recent days social workers and their leaders.

Emergency measures to deal with saturated prisons

The British government has launched emergency measures over saturation of prisons in northern England and Wales, where the proportion of prisoners to population is the highest in Western Europe. With prisons already full and courts overwhelmed since the pandemic, “the effect of these few days of disorder will be felt for months, years” for the judicial system, admitted Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood.

Triggering the “Early Dawn” system allows people apprehended to be detained in police cells and to wait for prison places to become available to have them appear. “We have inherited a justice system in crisis and vulnerable to shocks,” underlined the Secretary of State for Prisons, James Timpson, in a press release, presenting the measures taken as “difficult but necessary”.

Downing Street, however, clarified that some rioters could benefit from early release programs put in place in the face of overcrowding in prisons, which allow them to leave prison after having served 40% of their sentence.

What are the consequences of the riots?

While claiming to remain vigilant, the British government welcomed a “de-escalation” of the riots. The authorities attribute this lull to the “very firm” legal response of the new Labor government, in power since the beginning of July in the United Kingdom.

Dozens of police officers were injured, hotels for migrants were attacked, sometimes with the start of fires, in Hull, Rotherham and Tamworth. Mosques were targeted in Southport, Liverpool and Sunderland.

The government has so far focused all its efforts on the return of order, insisting that no political demands justified the violence. However, these riots point to deep problems affecting disadvantaged populations in the United Kingdom. Seven of England's ten most deprived areas, which often also have higher than average numbers of asylum seekers, have been rocked by riots, according to a Financial Times investigation.

The subject of immigration promises to liven up the parliamentary session in September. Some conservative elected officials emphasize the need to address these issues that are sources of tension. Without calling for violence, MP Nigel Farage justifies it by the concern of a disadvantaged white population ignored by the elites.

The Labor government says it wants to reduce levels of legal and illegal immigration. He risks being questioned over his decision to abandon the conservatives' plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. Especially since there are more and more Channel crossings this summer.