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A grandfather armed with a wooden cosh and a teenager who joined a crowd that attacked police while out celebrating his 18th birthday are among those jailed this week for taking part in the wave of far-right violence across England.
A Financial Times analysis shows that judges have already sentenced more than 30 individuals involved through a series of fast-tracked Crown Court hearings throughout the country — handing them a combined total of almost 70 years in prison.
Under what offences have rioters been charged and convicted?
Prosecutors have brought a range of charges, including under public order legislation drawn up by the Thatcher government in response to the miners’ strike and other unrest during the 1980s.
Typical charges include violent disorder, for which judges can impose up to five years imprisonment, and the lesser offence of affray, carrying a maximum sentence of three years.
Other rioters have been convicted of charges including arson and assaulting an emergency worker, which was introduced through legislation in 2018.
Online offences also have been prosecuted. In the first case of its kind since the violence erupted, Jordan Parlour, 28, was jailed on Friday for 20 months after he posted messages on Facebook about attacking a hotel that housed asylum seekers in Leeds.
Conspicuously, though, prosecutors have so far avoided charging those involved in the disorder with the offence of “riot”, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.
Why have rioters not been charged with rioting?
The everyday meaning of a “riot” — the violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd — would seem to describe many of the scenes. But to bring a successful case under that offence, the prosecution must show the accused was part of a group of at least 12 individuals, all of whom engaged in disorder for a “common purpose”.
Meeting that threshold is much harder than it might sound, several legal experts said.
The evidence that needs to be gathered to show that the 12 have acted together would take “some time” to gather, said Francis FitzGibbon KC, barrister at 23ES chambers. “It’s generally much easier to pick people off individually.”
Prosecutors’ decision to avoid the “riot” charge has drawn some scrutiny. Lewis Power KC of Church Court Chambers said that while he recognised courts were handing out “serious” sentences, some of those involved should be charged with the graver offence.
The scale of the disorder meant “the full force of the law has to come down, with extreme custodial sentences handed out”, he said.
At least so far prosecutors have not been willing to take the increased risk of a collapsed case in bringing the “riot” charge — especially when other offences that are much easier to prove are available to them. Only three individuals need to be present to show “violent disorder”, for instance.
Depending on the circumstances, judges can also impose sentences for multiple offences to run on top of each other. “They can do them [people convicted] for participating in a ‘riot’ in all but name,” FitzGibbon said.
What kind of sentences have been handed out?
Typical sentences for those convicted of violent disorder this week have ranged between about 18 and 30 months.
Judges have made clear in several hearings that any particular crime that takes place in the context of serious public disorder is deemed to be substantially more serious than it would be had it occurred in isolation.
This line of judicial thinking follows an important ruling from the Court of Appeal that upheld sentences handed to those who took part in a series of disturbances in 2011.
Lord Igor Judge, the then Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, said in the ruling that sentences for those who participate in such disorder “should be designed to deter others from similar criminal activity”.
Andrew Menary KC, recorder of Liverpool, said this week that offences “committed in the context of widespread disorder” were to be “regarded as aggravated forms of that offending”.
He added: “It is an unavoidable feature of mass disorder that each participant’s act — whatever it might have been when considered in isolation — is capable of stirring up and encouraging others to behave in a similar way, and that the harm to the public stems from the combined effect of what is done by everyone who is present.”
How is the court system coping?
On the face of it, remarkably well: judges have handed down sentences within days of the unrest starting, despite widely reported delays in the court system. The Crown Court, which hears the most serious criminal cases, has a backlog of about 68,000 cases.
The real test will come in the months ahead, however. The cases heard so far have involved defendants who have pleaded guilty at an early stage.
Police officers have already made 600 arrests and forces have promised to track down more rioters, especially given the volume of digital evidence available including through body-worn cameras, so more cases will be brought.
Tana Adkin KC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, which represents more than 2,500 practising barristers, said: “It’s very different between a guilty plea and a not-guilty plea for trial.”
Those who deny the charges would “go into the queue just like anyone else”, she added. “Serious offences are waiting 18 months for trial, and this will just add to the backlog.”
