- Court in the act - 18th September 2024
- On your bike! - 17th September 2024
- Presenting sentence… - 16th September 2024
The backlash has now begun following the appalling riots by the far right, as our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, has seen many times during his 41 year career in journalism.
Rioters have been jailed, hundreds took to the streets in peaceful counter-demonstrations, and ‘dawn raids’ have been carried out on the homes of suspected violent offenders.
It always seems to happen.
First comes the action (or in this case REACTION), then it is the backlash.
Hundreds have taken to the streets all over the UK, in powerful demonstrations opposing the violence of the far right in recent days.
The Metropolitan Police (Met) Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley declared that these protests were “very peaceful”.
“Dawn raids” were carried out to arrest suspected violent offenders, he added.
There has been a series of court cases, with some people convicted being given heavy jail sentences.
Many of the troublemakers over the past few days have been youngsters drawn by the thrill of mindless violence rather than by the application of revolutionary theory.
Justice will have a deterrent effect on many: rioters have been a lot less defiant in front of a judge than when they were part of the mob.
But not all of those who took part were teenage thugs.
For example Derek Drummond, is 58 and from Southport, but pleaded guilty to violent disorder as well as assault of an emergency worker last Tuesday.
His fellow accused (now convicted) Liam Riley, is 41, from Kirkdale, and also admitted violent disorder along with a racially aggravated public order offence in Liverpool on Saturday night.
Meanwhile Declan Geiran, is 29 from Liverpool, and said that he, too, committed violent disorder as well as arson in his home city.
The judge who sent them to prison, Andrew Menary KC declared: “every decent member of the community affected by these events will have been appalled, horrified and deeply disturbed about what had taken place in their neighbourhoods”.
Mr Menary said about John O’Malley, aged 43, who was jailed for 32 months for violent disorder in Southport,“You were at the front of what was essentially a baying mob. You were at the front and participating enthusiastically”.
Even pensioners were not exempt from the wrath of the law.
William Morgan, aged 69, was also given 32 months after pleading guilty to violent disorder and possession of an offensive weapon in Liverpool.
One couple joined in with the rioting in Hartlepool on their way back from Bingo. Steven Mailen, who is 54, and Ryan Sheers, aged 29, both pleaded guilty to violent disorder after 200 people gathered in the city on July 31.
Jailing them for two years and two months each at Teesside Crown Court, the judge said the pair were “at the very forefront of the mob” and tried to push through a police cordon.
Mailen was described as “one of the main instigators” of the large-scale disturbance.
Police have made more than 400 arrests over the riots, which started after the killing of three girls in a stabbing attack in Southport, and are considering using counter-terrorism laws in prosecutions.
The UK Government has pledged that the full force of the law will be used against those responsible for the disorder, including those who used social media to incite the violence.
Included in that is the release by the police of CCTV images as they appeal to people to identify those who were part of the far-right violence over the past week.
Merseyside Police issued pictures of 14 people, while South Yorkshire Police have published 21 pictures in connection with clashes outside the Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham on Sunday.
The hotel has been housing asylum seekers.
The riots have prompted much talk about the failure of multiculturalism.
In fact, integration is something the UK does exceptionally well.
In England teenagers who do not speak English as their first language are more likely to obtain good grades in maths and English in GCSE exams than native English-speakers.
Every ethnic group has become less segregated since the census started keeping track in 1991.
Talk of two-tier policing is false, too. The claim that white people are treated less fairly than ethnic minorities is nonsense.
In the year ending in March 2023, the police carried out 24.5 stop-and-searches for every 1,000 black people and 5.9 for every 1,000 white people.
Events like these sort of actions have always happened after riots and always will.
Nothing lasts forever…
The memories of Phil’s decades-long award-winning career in journalism (when seeing violent scenes were commonplace), as he was gripped by the rare disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
