UK riots: 12-year-old boy charged over disorder as Tory councillor’s wife Lucy Connolly in court today

A 41-year-old man has been jailed for two years and eight months at Sheffield Crown Court for his part in the rioting outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Rotherham.

Ricky Hardman, who runs a haulage business, was arrested after a picture of him brandishing a piece of wood during the disorder on Sunday August 4 was published in a national newspaper, a judge was told.

Video was also shown in court on Monday showing the defendant was part of a group attacking a police dog van during the violence outside the Holiday Inn Express in Manvers.

Recorder of Sheffield Judge Jeremy Richardson KC told Hardman: “The incident was part of wider national civic unrest fostered by some form of malignancy in society spread by malevolent users of social media.

“There’s no question the disorder was racist in character and extremely frightening for anyone who was there.”

Hardman, of Norfolk Road, Barnsley, admitted violent disorder last week.

He sat in the dock with one security guard wearing a black t-shirt and green trousers with his family watching from the public gallery.

Three further males have been charged following the violent disorder in Southport on Tuesday 30 July.

Harvey Gabbott, 21, of Hillside, Tarleton, and Paul Dryhurst, 33, of Gale Road, Litherland, have been charged with violent disorder and remanded to appear at Liverpool Magistrates Court today, Monday 12 August.

A 12-year-old male from Southport was also charged with violent disorder and remanded to appear at Merseyside Youth Court this morning.

It brings the total number of people charged in connection with the recent disorder in Southport and Liverpool to 30.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it has authorised South Wales Police to charge two men over Facebook posts that allegedly intended to stir up racial or religious hatred.

Geraint Boyce, 43, and Jamie Michael, 45, are accused of publishing threatening material on a Facebook account, contrary to Section 29C(1) of the Public Order Act 1986.

The CPS said the charges relate to Facebook posts on or around July 31 in relation to the widespread public disorder.

Boyce, of Penrhiw-Fer, and Michael, of Penygraig, are due to appear at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it has authorised Northumbria Police to charge a man with distributing a recording intending to stir up racial hatred.

James Aspin, 34, is accused of an offence contrary to Section 29E of the Public Order Act 1986.

The CPS said the charge relates to an alleged video published on TikTok on or before August 8, 2024.

Mr Aspin, of Blyth, Northumberland, is due to appear at Newcastle Magistrates’ Court today.

The Reform UK leader has accused Sir Keir Starmer of being a “threat to free speech” after the prime minister suggested the government would review social media laws in the wake of far-right riots.

But right-wing Mr Farage has criticised the move calling the PM to allow people to “speculate and ask questions” online.

Speaking on Fox News, the right-wing politician said: “Nobody should use any social media platform to spread hate or incite violence… I think all of us would agree with that free speech rule.

“But what we should be allowed to do on social media is to speculate. Is to ask questions. To try and put facts out that wake up the rest of the community

“When you’re engaged in something like that, you can never guarantee that what you say is 100 per cent true. Starmer by cracking down on that, poses the biggest threat to free speech we’ve seen in our history.”

A man has been charged with assaulting an emergency worker after a counter protest in Brighton.

Ian Ward, 53, of Old Mill Close, Portslade, will appear in court also accused of common assault and affray, after the 2,000-strong demonstration in the East Sussex city on August 7.

He has been remanded in custody and will appear at Crawley Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

A Sussex Police spokesman added: “Police officers and PCSOs will continue to provide a visible and reassuring presence across the county and anyone with information or concerns is asked to speak to local officers or report online.”

People are asked to quote Operation Skylark when contacting the force via 101 or 999 in an emergency.

A cabinet minister’s claim rioters will not be freed early to help ease chronic overcrowding in UK jails has been hurriedly rowed back.

Last month ministers announced plans to release some inmates early to free up prison space, blaming the decision on the last Conservative government and overcrowding.

Asked if he could guarantee that rioters would not be set free early under the scheme, Mr Reynolds told The Camilla Tominey Show on GB News: “I understand that they won’t be.”

He added that it was “because of those difficult decisions that were made by the ministers in the new government… that there is capacity in the system to deal with this disorder”.

Our Whitehall editor Kate Devlin has the full story:

A prominent anti-racist Muslim group are urging the government to ramp up its commitment to gender-based Islamophobia, The Independent can reveal.

Shaista Aziz, Amna Abdullatif and Huda Jawad, who are known as “The Three Hijabis” due to their heritage and Islamic religious dress, have been contacted by Muslim women across the country with worries and reports of their hijabs being pulled off in the street.

“Muslim women being afraid to travel into their town and city centres – making them no-go areas for them, is gendered Islamophobia,” a statement, first seen by The Independent, from The Three Hijabis says.

Our race correspondent Nadine White has the full story:

The director of public prosecutions has reportedly warned that the worst offending protesters could face up to 10 years in prison if they are charged with rioting.

Stephen Parkinson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said hundreds of violent rioters will continue appearing in courts across the country in the coming days, the Sunday Times said.

Mr Parkinson reportedly told of a “new phase” of cases which will include “more serious charges with stiffer penalties”.

Many charged so far have been prosecuted for violent disorder, which carries a maximum sentence of five years.

The Sunday Times reported that the CPS is considering charging people with the more serious offence of rioting, which could lead to 10 years’ imprisonment.

The newspaper quoted Mr Parkinson saying: “We warned of the consequences and we will deliver these consequences.

“It’s not about exacting revenge, it’s about delivering justice.”

It comes as the parents of a “precious” six-year-old girl killed in the Southport attack said that their older daughter saw and escaped the stabbing.

Bebe King was killed alongside Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, during a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class at the Hart Space on M

The Archbishop of Canterbury has labelled the far-right “unchristian” and condemned the use of Christian imagery in the riots as “an offence to our faith”.

Justin Welby made the remarks condemning the violent unrest, which he described as “racist”, “anti-Muslim, anti-refugee”, in an article for the Guardian newspaper.

The country’s most senior Christian leader weighed in following a week of disorder that began after a mass stabbing of children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport in July.

The archbishop’s called Christians to distance themselves from the far-right, writing: “Let me say clearly now to Christians that they should not be associated with any far-right group – because those groups are unchristian.”

He added that Christian iconography had been “exploited” by the far-right and served as “an offence to our faith”.

Speaking directly to Muslims and other faiths, Mr Welby said: “We denounce people misusing such imagery as fundamentally antichristian.”

Mr Welby said the riots were “detonated by lies and fuelled by deliberate misinformation, spread quickly online by bad actors with malignant motivations.”

He added: “The lies and misinformation flourished in fertile ground cultivated by years of rhetoric from some of our press and politicians, arriving at a point where some felt emboldened to try to set fire to a hotel housing asylum seekers and target mosques.”

The archbishop also rejected the description of the riots as “protests” and said they were “criminal” and “must be controlled”.