‘Wake up d***heads… it’s a civil war’: YouTuber jailed for stirring up racial hatred outside asylum seeker hotel
Homeless former chef Aaron Johnson, 33, launched a vile misinformed rant to 30,000 viewers
A YouTuber has been jailed for stirring up racial hatred after live streaming a vile foul-mouthed rant outside a hotel housing asylum seekers.
Aaron Johnson, 33, a homeless former chef, broadcast himself on an increasingly angry 25-minute tirade from outside the hotel in Stockport to an audience which swelled to more than 30,000 viewers during the widespread disorder which followed the deaths of three children in Southport.
After he had been to the pub and had seen misinformation on Twitter suggesting migrants had been throwing ‘s**t’ and bricks at passing motorists, Johnson decided to go the hotel and broadcast live from his YouTube channel, The Looking Glass.
Today (Thursday, October 10), Johnson, of Criterion Street in north Reddish, Stockport, appeared at Minshull Street Crown Court to be sentenced after he admitted a single public order offence, namely that he distributing a recording intending to stir up racial hatred.
Broadcasting from a mobile phone, Johnson filmed from the outside of the hotel through the front entrance and he even filmed inside bedrooms, showing asylum seekers inside. During a foul-mouthed tirade, he wrongly claimed that migrants being housed there had thrown ‘s**t’ and bricks at passing cars and called one person who came to speak to him a terrorist.
He identified the location of the hotel in Offerton and claimed the country had descended into ‘civil war’. Prosecutor Angus MacDonald told the court the ‘background’ was the incident Southport, prompting ‘several incidents of violent disorder’ across the country which was ‘focused on asylum seekers and other racial groups’.
He said staff from the hotel in Stockport called police after someone – the defendant – had been trying to film asylum seekers through their bedroom window. Mr MacDonald said the clip – now removed from YouTube but played in court – captured the defendant’s conduct.
During the video, Johnson filmed staff inside the entrance and migrants through their bedroom windows. He could be heard saying he was ‘sick of it’ and ‘these are all migrants’.
He appeared to tell one migrant: “Hello, are you enjoying the free food and free f***ing accommodation yeah?” Later, he said: “These people get put f***ing first.” The footage captured him filming a Union Jack outside front of the hotel and saying: “That’s a f***ing insult. And you wonder why people are p**d off. It’s disgusting… it’s a f***ing insult.”
When people from the hotel came to speak to him, he launched a tirade at them, challenging them to call the police. He is captured criticising Palestinians with ‘dish clothes on their heads’. He is heard to reference Palestine and Hamas and he criticised those present as ‘terrorist supporting scumbags’.
Despite being unemployed at the time, he was heard to say: “I’m a taxpayer. I pay for this. I’ll do what the f*** I want.” He added: “I’m sick to death of this country. I’m sick of it. It’s civil war. Wake up d***heads.” When police finally arrived, he told officers he had ‘had enough’ before he was arrested.
One member of staff, in a victim personal statement referenced in court, said the incident had left him ‘feeling sad’ and that the migrants being housed there at the time ‘didn’t deserve this treatment from him’. Another said they ‘felt threatened’ and thought Johnson was about to attack them.
Alexander Bennie, defending, said his client, who had one previous conviction for throwing a missile at a football match, had worked as a chef for 17 years but he had lost his job and became homeless following the death of his grandmother in 2018 and the breakdown of a relationship. The court heard he didn’t know his father.
The death had a ‘very significant impact’ on Johnson who was eventually placed on medication for depression, said Mr Bennie, who said the defendant descended into a ‘digital hole’ where he sought content ‘from creators and types you can probably image’.
On the day of the incident, Johnson had been in the pub when he saw on Twitter what turned out to be ‘false information’ that migrants from the hotel had been throwing bricks at people, said Mr Bennie.
Mr Bennie said his client had not intended to ‘stir up violence’ when he went to the hotel and was now ‘extremely remorseful’ and ‘disturbed’ by his own behaviour which he now realised was ‘abhorrent’. The lawyer said his client’s ‘frustrations at the way his life was going was recycled towards’ migrants.
Jailing him for two years, Judge Maurice Greene said the ‘context’ of the incident was the widespread ‘civil disorder’ around the UK following the deaths of the three children in Southport and the ‘reaction from various parts of our society towards other parts of our society’ in which ‘asylum seekers and refugees have been targeted’.
The judge told the defendant his claims in the footage that asylum seekers had been throwing missiles at passing cars were ‘palpably untrue’, adding: “You were abusive and swearing continually and clearly intimidating people in the hotel and people who came out. You called one of them a terrorist.”
Judge Greene said: “I accept it was not your intention to incite serious violence but it was quite clear there was the potential to incite serious violence especially towards refugees and asylum seekers.”
The defendant’s repeated references during his YouTube rant to homelessness was ‘no doubt prompted’ by his own homelessness, said the judge, who described the defendant’s behaviour as ‘appalling’. However, he said he accepted that the defendant was now ‘remorseful’ and that his conduct during the video showed someone who was ‘almost out of control’.
As he was being led away to begin his sentence, Johnson gave a thumbs up sign to one of his supporters in the public who said ‘keep your chin up Aaron’.
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