A grandmother who shouted at police using “truly disgraceful” racist slurs has become the first woman to be jailed in connection with violent unrest in Hull.
Jackie Miller, 57, of South Garth, Little Weighton, East Yorkshire, was heard shouting repeatedly at a line of police officers while ranting at them during the disorder on 3 August.
Hull Crown Court heard the grandmother, who was handed an eight-month jail term after pleading guilty to racially aggravated public disorder, had unleashed the “diatribe” in front of her 15-year-old daughter.
Five other men were jailed for violent disorder at the hearing on Friday.
Michael Campbell, 56, Daniel Mennell, 36, Jarrod Farrah, 32, Ben Chapman, 20, and Joshua Hobman, 33, all pleaded guilty to the charge.
Prosecutor Jeremy Evans said Miller had been “clearly demonstrating racial hostility referring to the asylum seekers the police were present to protect”.
Hull Crown Court heard a hotel on Ferensway housing migrants was targeted as officers formed a protective line to guard it, while shops were looted on Jameson Street, after the killing of three girls in Southport last month.
Footage was played in court showing the 57-year-old cleaner approaching a line of officers holding riot shields and repeatedly shouting racially-abusive comments at them.
Judge John Thackray KC told Miller she had used “truly disgraceful words” and the footage was “truly shocking to watch”.
Her defence barrister, Rachel Scott, told the court the 57-year-old, who has three children and two grandchildren, was “disgusted and ashamed of herself”.
The court heard one of Miller’s daughters was “so disgusted” by her mother’s behaviour that she “doesn’t want to have a relationship with her after this”.
Mr Evans said that earlier that day Campbell had positioned a bicycle horizontally in front of him “providing a makeshift cordon to fend off officers and a police dog”, which had subsequently bitten him during the incident.
Footage showed Campbell, of Icelandic Close, Hull, being tackled to the ground by a police dog at the front of a line of police officers, who were guarding the hotel on Ferensway.
Defending Campbell, his barrister Michael Forrest said the father-of-six was a family man who was “utterly disgusted with his actions”.
He said the 56-year-old “doesn’t know why he involved himself” in the violence having gone into the city to buy a suit.
Sentencing him to 20 months in prison, Judge Thackray told him his offending was “motivated by hostility based upon race”.
‘Idiotic’ behaviour
Daniel Mennell, 36, was jailed for 27 months.
The court heard the drunk labourer, who was prominent at the front of the unrest, threw tiles at police.
In mitigation, his defence barrister, Charlotte Baines, described his behaviour as “idiotic” and said he was “ashamed” having set himself back into his “old offending ways”.
Jarrod Farrah, 32, was jailed for two years after he behaved aggressively towards police by “lunging” at them.
His barrister said the father-of-two was “thoroughly ashamed of his actions, having let himself and his family down”.
Sentencing all three at the same time, Judge Thackray told them: “I watched all the videos concerning each of you and they are depressing and horrifying to watch”.
The judge heard Ben Chapman, 20, of Stockleigh Close, Hull, and Joshua Hobman, 33, of Wenlock Street, Hull, also threw missiles at police.
Chapman, who was serving a community order for assaulting an emergency worker at the time of the unrest, repeatedly kicked a bin that was fixed to the ground in an attempt to remove it in a bid to use it as “a missile” but was “unsuccessful”.
The 20-year-old was sentenced to 28 months detention in a young offenders institution for violent disorder, in addition to serving the remaining four months of his previous offence. In total, he was jailed for 32 months.
Hobman, who aimed a punch at an officer’s shield and threw a drinks can at police, was jailed for two years.
But the judge said his sentence would be reduced because he was the sole custodian of his nine-year-old son.
BBC News
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