A 12-year-old boy admitted to a judge on Monday that he was the perpetrator of violence during two anti-migrant rallies in Manchester, northern England. He is believed to be the youngest person to be accused of the recent riots in the United Kingdom.
The boy pleaded guilty in Manchester Crown Court to taking part in throwing stones at a bus outside a hotel housing migrants on July 31, then to aiming at the window of an e-cigarette shop and throwing a projectile at police on August 3. Having pleaded guilty, he will be sentenced at a later date without a trial and remains in custody pending his sentence.
While the racist and Islamophobic violence that has rocked the country has subsided over the past week, hundreds of rioters and authors of online posts deemed to incite hatred continue to appear in court.
Among them, many young adults and even teenagers, like the child who appeared in Manchester and whose case was described as “very serious” by Judge Joanne Hirst given his participation in two isolated incidents. A second 12-year-old boy was due to appear in Liverpool (north-west) on Monday for violence.
“Without ideological motivation”
Andy Preston, mayor of Middlesbrough (north-east), where violence took place, estimated this weekend that “90% of the damage was caused by young white British people looking for thrills and adrenaline without ideological motivation”.
In total, more than 900 people have been arrested and 450 charged after riots targeting mosques and migrant accommodation centres in particular following online rumours about the origin of the suspect in the knife attack that killed three girls on 29 July in Southport (north-west).
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, believing that no political motivation could justify these attacks, promised a firm and swift judicial response.
Prison sentences have already been handed down to some defendants, including for Facebook posts calling for violence. Their verdicts are often broadcast on television, with the government seeing a deterrent effect in the greatest possible publicity.
With prisons already full and courts overwhelmed since the pandemic, “the effect of these few days of disorder will be felt for months, years” for the justice system, Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood admitted.
This article is originally published on tdg.ch
