RSS Feed
Twitter
Two men who posted messages on Facebook inciting other people to riot in their home towns during the recent English outbreaks of violence have each been sentenced to four years in prison by a judge at Chester Crown Court.
Jordan Blackshaw, 20, set up an "event" called Smash Down in Northwich Town for the night of August 8 on the social networking site but no one apart from the police, who were monitoring the page, turned up at the prearranged meeting point outside a McDonald's restaurant. Blackshaw was promptly arrested.
Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, of Latchford, Warrington, used his Facebook account in the early hours of August 9 to design a web page entitled The Warrington Riots.
The court was told it caused a wave of panic in the town. When he woke up the following morning with a hangover, he removed the page and apologised, saying it had been a joke. His message was distributed to 400 Facebook contacts, but no rioting broke out as a result.
Sentencing Blackshaw to four years in a young offenders' institution, Judge Elgan Edwards, QC, said he had committed an "evil act".
He said: "This happened at a time when collective insanity gripped the nation. Your conduct was quite disgraceful and the title of the message you posted on Facebook chills the blood.
"You sought to take advantage of crime elsewhere and transpose it to the peaceful streets of Northwich. The idea revolted many right thinking members of society. No one actually turned up due to the prompt and efficient actions of police in using modern policing."
The judge said that Sutcliffe-Keenan "caused a very real panic" and "put a very considerable strain on police resources in Warrington". He praised Cheshire police for their "modern and clever policy" of infiltrating the website.
The heavy sentences came as defence lawyers and civil rights groups have criticised the "disproportionate" sentences imposed on some convicted rioters as the latest official figures show nearly 1300 suspects have been brought before the courts.
The revelation that magistrates were advised by justices' clerks to disregard normal sentencing guidelines when dealing with riot-related cases alarmed a number of lawyers who warned it would trigger a spate of appeals.
Also yesterday, a looter was warned he could be jailed for helping himself to an ice-cream cone during disturbances.
Anderson Fernandes, 22, appeared before magistrates in Manchester charged with burglary after he took two scoops of coffee ice-cream and a cone from Patisserie Valerie in the city centre. He gave the cone away because he did not like the flavour.
Fernandes admitted burglary in relation to the ice-cream and an unconnected charge of handling stolen goods after a vacuum cleaner was recovered from his home. District judge Jonathan Taaffe said: "I have a public duty to deal swiftly and harshly with matters of this nature." Fernandes will be sentenced next week.
In sentencing four other convicted Manchester rioters, a Crown Court judge, Andrew Gilbert, QC, made clear why he was disregarding sentencing guidelines when he said "the offences of the night of 9 August ... takes them completely outside the usual context of criminality".
He added: "The principal purpose is that the courts should show that outbursts of criminal behaviour like this will be and must be met with sentences longer than they would be if the offences had been committed in isolation."
The Ministry of Justice's latest estimate, at midday yesterday, shows the courts have dealt with 1277 alleged offenders of whom more than 700 have been remanded in custody. Two-thirds of the cases were in London.
About 21 per cent of those appearing before the courts have been juveniles. The proportion of alleged youth offenders was higher in Nottingham, Birmingham and Manchester.
But Sally Ireland, policy director of the law-reform organisation Justice, said: "The circumstances of public disorder should be treated as an aggravating factor and one would expect that to push up sentences by a degree, but not by as far as some of the cases we have seen.
"Some instances are completely out of all proportion. There will be a flurry of appeals. There's a question about this advice [from justices' clerks] and whether it should have been issued at all."
Rakesh Bhasin, a solicitor partner at the law firm Steel & Shamash, which represents some of those charged following the riots, said some reported sentences seemed to be "disproportionate".
Paul Mendelle, QC, a former chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said: "The idea that the rulebook goes out the window strikes me as inherently unjust. It sets all manner of alarm bells ringing. Guidelines are not tramlines. There are guidelines and they take account of aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
"There have been rulings following the Bradford riots and Israeli embassy demonstrations that said which sort of guidelines should be followed. I don't see why [magistrates] should be told to disregard these."
 |
| Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, one of two men jailed for four years over a Facebook post. |
Jordan Blackshaw, 20, set up an "event" called Smash Down in Northwich Town for the night of August 8 on the social networking site but no one apart from the police, who were monitoring the page, turned up at the prearranged meeting point outside a McDonald's restaurant. Blackshaw was promptly arrested.
Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, of Latchford, Warrington, used his Facebook account in the early hours of August 9 to design a web page entitled The Warrington Riots.
The court was told it caused a wave of panic in the town. When he woke up the following morning with a hangover, he removed the page and apologised, saying it had been a joke. His message was distributed to 400 Facebook contacts, but no rioting broke out as a result.
Sentencing Blackshaw to four years in a young offenders' institution, Judge Elgan Edwards, QC, said he had committed an "evil act".
He said: "This happened at a time when collective insanity gripped the nation. Your conduct was quite disgraceful and the title of the message you posted on Facebook chills the blood.
"You sought to take advantage of crime elsewhere and transpose it to the peaceful streets of Northwich. The idea revolted many right thinking members of society. No one actually turned up due to the prompt and efficient actions of police in using modern policing."
The judge said that Sutcliffe-Keenan "caused a very real panic" and "put a very considerable strain on police resources in Warrington". He praised Cheshire police for their "modern and clever policy" of infiltrating the website.
The heavy sentences came as defence lawyers and civil rights groups have criticised the "disproportionate" sentences imposed on some convicted rioters as the latest official figures show nearly 1300 suspects have been brought before the courts.
The revelation that magistrates were advised by justices' clerks to disregard normal sentencing guidelines when dealing with riot-related cases alarmed a number of lawyers who warned it would trigger a spate of appeals.
Also yesterday, a looter was warned he could be jailed for helping himself to an ice-cream cone during disturbances.
Anderson Fernandes, 22, appeared before magistrates in Manchester charged with burglary after he took two scoops of coffee ice-cream and a cone from Patisserie Valerie in the city centre. He gave the cone away because he did not like the flavour.
Fernandes admitted burglary in relation to the ice-cream and an unconnected charge of handling stolen goods after a vacuum cleaner was recovered from his home. District judge Jonathan Taaffe said: "I have a public duty to deal swiftly and harshly with matters of this nature." Fernandes will be sentenced next week.
In sentencing four other convicted Manchester rioters, a Crown Court judge, Andrew Gilbert, QC, made clear why he was disregarding sentencing guidelines when he said "the offences of the night of 9 August ... takes them completely outside the usual context of criminality".
He added: "The principal purpose is that the courts should show that outbursts of criminal behaviour like this will be and must be met with sentences longer than they would be if the offences had been committed in isolation."
The Ministry of Justice's latest estimate, at midday yesterday, shows the courts have dealt with 1277 alleged offenders of whom more than 700 have been remanded in custody. Two-thirds of the cases were in London.
About 21 per cent of those appearing before the courts have been juveniles. The proportion of alleged youth offenders was higher in Nottingham, Birmingham and Manchester.
But Sally Ireland, policy director of the law-reform organisation Justice, said: "The circumstances of public disorder should be treated as an aggravating factor and one would expect that to push up sentences by a degree, but not by as far as some of the cases we have seen.
"Some instances are completely out of all proportion. There will be a flurry of appeals. There's a question about this advice [from justices' clerks] and whether it should have been issued at all."
Rakesh Bhasin, a solicitor partner at the law firm Steel & Shamash, which represents some of those charged following the riots, said some reported sentences seemed to be "disproportionate".
Paul Mendelle, QC, a former chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said: "The idea that the rulebook goes out the window strikes me as inherently unjust. It sets all manner of alarm bells ringing. Guidelines are not tramlines. There are guidelines and they take account of aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
"There have been rulings following the Bradford riots and Israeli embassy demonstrations that said which sort of guidelines should be followed. I don't see why [magistrates] should be told to disregard these."
0 comments:
Post a Comment