Rioter tried to break down door to family home as pregnant mum and child hid in bathroom

Bailey Rogers, 21, watched the family, who were from an ethnic community, outside their home – before launching her attack in the midst of the 2024 riots

A rioter who tried to break down the front door of a flat as a family cowered inside their bathroom has been locked up.

Bailey Rogers repeatedly kicked at the door, before hammering at it with a weapon after watching the family, who the court heard were from an ethnic community.

Rogers, 21, was out on Middlesbrough’s Union Street alongside other rioters on August 4, 2024. She picked up bricks and threw them as the civil unrest saw cars set on fire; windows of local businesses smashed, and weapons thrown at the police.

CCTV operators tracked Rogers, Teesside Crown Court has heard, as she was “laughing and chatting happily to others”. She was captured watching three men standing outside their home, who were “watching as the mob approached them”.

The men, who the court heard are from an ethnic community, went inside and shut their front door. CCTV operators followed Rogers as she pulled her hood up, crossed the road and repeatedly try to kick the door in. Others began kicking the door and she shoulder barged it before taking something out of her backpack and hitting the door with that.

Saba Shan, prosecuting, said that the “terrified” family – which included a heavily pregnant mum and her young child – hid in their bathroom as multiple rioters tried to break down their front door.

Rogers was later identified from the hours of footage of the civil unrest by a police officer. She was arrested in November that year, and the court heard that she claimed she had attacked the door to the flat after members of the family had behaved in a “sexually threatening” way towards her.

On Wednesday, May 27, Judge Joanne Kidd rejected Rogers’ story, saying said there was no evidence to show it was true. Rogers told her barrister that she no longer wished to continue with her claim. She pleaded guilty to violent disorder at an earlier hearing.

Her barrister Charlie Thompson told the court that a psychiatrist had found that Rogers, who attended a special educational needs school, has a learning disability and is “easily led by others”. She was also found to be immature for her age and she was 19 when she took part in the riots.

Mr Thompson asked Judge Kidd to consider a suspended sentence. “Ms Rogers would lose her council flat, where she lives with her teenage brother, if she is sent to prison,” Mr Thompson said. “She is a temporary guardian to her brother and a carer for her mother”.

Rogers denied there was any racism behind her attack. But Judge Kidd said that a compilation of CCTV footage showed “three young men, from an ethnic community, standing outside their home watching a mob approach their home. They were terrified. You were watching them. It is no coincidence that you targeted their home.

“Your offending was motivated by a hostility to their race”.

The judge said she accepted that Rogers was intellectually impaired at the time but said there was no evidence that she was pressured to carry out the attack, rather she started it. “It is likely you were caught up with the festival-like atmosphere,” the judge said. “You were clearly enjoying the disorder”.

Rogers, of Ensign Court in Hartlepool, was jailed for 16 months.

Gazette Live