Facebook rioters lose appeal against sentences

Two men given four-year sentences for setting up Facebook pages inciting others to riot, have had their appeals rejected.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge also dismissed five appeals in burglary cases, but halved the sentences in three cases allocated for handling stolen goods.

Lawyers for each of the 10 claimants had urged judges to find the sentences allocated “excessive” during a hearing on 27 September.

However Lord Judge, who was sitting with the president of the Queen’s Bench Division, Sir John Thomas, and Lord Justice Leveson, said that severe sentences must follow the actions and “ghastliness” inflicted on neighbourhoods.

“It is very simple. Those who deliberately participate in disturbances of this magnitude, causing injury and damage and fear to even the most stout-hearted of citizens, and who individually commit further crimes during the course of the riots, are committing aggravated crimes,” he said.

“They must be punished accordingly, and the sentences should be designed to deter others from similar criminal activity.”

Facebook pages: a “very serious crime”

Jordan Blackshaw, 21, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, both from Cheshire, were charged for setting up Facebook pages that incited others to riot. Their lawyers told the court last month that their clients’ actions were “monumentally foolish”, “hugely stupid” and “hugely short-sighted”.

Modern technology almost certainly assisted rioters in other places to organise the rapid movement and congregation of disorderly groups. Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge

However the judges said they were “unimpressed” with the suggestion that the defendants did no more than make an entry in their Facebook account.

Delivering his judgement on the Facebook cases specifically, the lord chief justice said that the “abuse of modern technology for criminal purposes extends to and includes incitement of very many people by a single step”.

“Indeed,it is a sinister feature of these cases that modern technology almost certainly assisted rioters in other places to organise the rapid movement and congregation of disorderly groups in new and unpoliced areas,” he said.

Both Blackshaw and Sutcliffe-Keenan intended to cause “very serious crime” at a time of “sustained countrywide mayhem” he added.

Apeals rejected
Enrico Vanasco, a 25-year-old chef, took a £300 camera for Jessops and was jailed for 20 months.
Hassan Halloway, 39, admitted charges of burglary and violent disorder and was jailed for four years and eight months.
Lorraine McGrane, a 19-year-old Territorial Army soldier from Peckham, London, was sentenced to 13 months for stealing a television.
Michael Gillespie-Doyle, 19, from Openshaw, was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court to two years in a young offenders’ institution after admitting burglary at Sainsbury’s.
Hasan Koyuncu, 18, was sentenced to 12 months in a young offenders’ institution for burglary.

Apeals granted
Stephen Craven, 24, of Pendleton, was jailed for 12 months at Manchester Crown Court, after pleading guilty to handling stolen goods. Sentence was reduced to six months.
David Beswick, a 31-year-old coach driver from Eccles, was jailed for 18 months also Manchester for handling stolen goods. Sentence was reduced to nine months.
Stephen Carter, 26, from Salford, was sentenced to 16 months for theft by finding, after being caught with a bag of clothes and shoes worth £500. His sentence was reduced to eight months.

Referring to the three successful appeals, the judges ruled that a distinction needed to be made between offences connected with disorder and those which were “intrinsic” to the disorder, which is “an even more aggravating feature”.

“None of these cases of dishonest handling involves someone who handled stolen goods by way of encouragement of the commission of burglary and theft as part of the disorder,” said Lord Judge. “Rather each represents opportunistic involvement after the burglaries had occurred.”

All sentences were handed out for crimes committed during riots and looting that broke out in Tottenham and eventually spread to other parts of London, Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham between 6 and 9 August 2011.