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Jobless Tommy Robinson fan hurled missile at mosque as anarchy rained down on Hanley

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February 17, 2025
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Matthew Hodgekinson made offensive chants during the city centre riot

Jobless Matthew Hodgekinson was caught on CCTV throwing missiles at a mosque as Hanley descended into anarchy. The 33-year-old has been jailed for more than two years for his part in the city centre riot.

Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court heard he shouted abuse at counter-protestors in Town Road on August 3, telling them to “pack your bags and f*** off home”. And Hodgekinson – who has a skull and cross bones tattoo on his face – was also heard chanting in support of Tommy Robinson.

Prosecutor Fiona Cortese said: “On CCTV footage the defendant is seen by the mosque in Town Road picking up an item. It’s not sure whether that item was thrown, but he then picks up two more items and throws them towards the mosque.

“The defendant goes to the counter protest shouting ‘F***ing cowards’, ‘Pack your bags and f*** off home’. He walks quickly towards a police officer and is pushed back.

“He was arrested on September 4. During interviewing, the defendant admitted throwing the two items and admitted to throwing more. He also said he was shouting ‘Stop the boats’ and chanting Tommy Robinson’s name.”

Hodgekinson, of High Street, Halmerend, pleaded guilty to violent disorder. Stuart Muldoon, mitigating, told the court how his family know a different side to Hodgekinson’s character, and said although he’s unemployed he helps people in the community with gardening.

He added: “Mr Hodgekinson didn’t know there was a mosque there, and he said he threw the items towards the counter-protest because they were attacking him.”

Jailing him for 27 months, Judge Graeme Smith said: “On July 29 last year a horrific attack took place at a dance studio in Southport. Tragically three young girls were stabbed to death and others were injured. A young man was sentenced recently for 52 years.

“Regrettably, false information circulated online in particular about this man’s immigration status and ethnicity. A number of protests took place in the days following the incident, one of which took place on August 3 in Hanley,.

“[People] are allowed to protest through public demonstration, but that does not include violence. Town Road in the centre of Hanley is close to a cinema, restaurants and shops, and members of the public were out shopping, eating and enjoying their leisure time which was impacted by the disorder which lasted for several hours.

“Police officers were deployed to prevent violent disorder. Although some people conducted protests peacefully, many did not. Missiles were thrown – including you – weapons were brandished, and police officers and members of the public were injured. There were widespread acts of violence which resulted in serious fear, distress and disorder, as well as costs to the community.

“You were first seen outside Hanley Town Hall shouting and chanting – that did not amount to violent disorder, you were entitled to hold those views and shout those things, however when you reached Town Road the disorder spread. You are seen on CCTV throwing missiles – a very dangerous act. A number of people were hit, not necessarily by you. I have no idea if your missiles hit or not, but members of the public and police officers were injured.

“There was hostility towards religious groups, mainly Muslims, and you say you didn’t know the mosque was there and you didn’t shout anything about Muslims, your problems seem to be with immigration.”

Stoke Sentinel

Jailed Hanley rioter’s grovelling apology: ‘I never thought I’d end up in prison’

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February 17, 2025
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Aaron Dring is now said to have ‘turned his life around’ whilst in prison

Protester Aaron Dring sat in the middle of the road as he threatened police and shouted abuse during the Hanley riot. The 26-year-old parked himself in the middle of the road and refused to budge as trouble erupted in the wake of the Southport murders.

Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court heard Yodel worker Dring called police officers ‘nonces’ and challenged one officer to a fight on August 3 last year. He was also heard to shout ‘We want our country back’ and told one officer he would ‘f*** him up’ after being struck by a baton.

The defendant wrote a grovelling apology for his actions on the day which was read out in court before he was jailed for two years.

Fiona Cortese, prosecuting, told the court Dring had played an active role on the day. She said: “The defendant was one of the protesters who were sat in the middle of the road stopping police vehicles from entering whilst shouting ‘We want our country back’.

“At Town Road where the main disorder took place, the defendant called police officers who were performing their duties ‘nonces’, and he shouted verbal abuse at them. He pushed at a police shield, and at one point the defendant was in front of a sergeant and missiles were being thrown – but not by him.

“When the officer asked the defendant to move back he refused. This ended up in punches and the officer hit another individual with his baton before striking the defendant. He told the officer he would ‘F*** him up’ if he came after him. The defendant made a jabbing motion, and said ‘Take your kit off and come around the corner for a fight’.”

Dring, of Westbourne Drive, Tunstall, pleaded guilty to violent disorder. Jennifer Devans-Tamakloe, mitigating, said: “Mr Dring has written a letter stating ‘I never thought I would end up in jail, but my actions have led me here. My behaviour and how I acted is unacceptable. I would like to apologise to the police and to my family for how I behaved.

“‘I understand the officers were just doing their job and my actions prevented them from doing so. While I’ve been in jail, Priest Roger has made me think about life in a new way and how every action has a reaction, and mine is jail. He has also been teaching me that I should treat people how I want to be treated’.”

Ms Devans-Tamakloe added: “This offence was clearly a stupid offence to have committed – a serious one – and it could have ended up worse for members of the public than it did. Mr Dring has held his hands up for his actions and he hasn’t tried to make excuses or shy away.

“He was elected an equalities representative in prison and he has maintained an enhanced status. He is demonstrating progress and discipline. He was a parcel sorter at Yodel before he went to prison and he lived with his parents. He has shown remorse, and there is a realistic prospect for rehab within the community.”

Judge Graeme Smith said: “Police officers were deployed to prevent violent disorder. Although some people conducted protests peacefully, many did not. Missiles were thrown, weapons were brandished, and police officers and members of the public were injured. There were widespread acts of violence which resulted in serious fear, distress and disorder, as well as costs to the community.

“You did not at any stage seek to leave, you were part of a group of people who sat down and stopped police vehicles from getting past – that wasn’t violent disorder. You were shouting things, again, not violent disorder. You then moved up to Town Road near The Potteries Centre where people were shopping when the violence broke out.

“The police were there to keep order because of that violence and there were a number of protesters and police officers injured. The police officers were simply performing their duty of keeping the peace.

“You were at the front line for some considerable time. You were engaging with police officers, abusing and threatening them, and you were threatening to be violent. You could have left at any time.

“I have to consider whether you acted on religious or racial hostility, in your case I see none of this hostility.”

Stoke Sentinel

Man sentenced to five years in prison for rioting

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February 14, 2025
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A man has been jailed for five years and seven months for encouraging people to set fire to a hotel during rioting in Staffordshire.

Mitchell Cleaver, 25, from Burton-upon-Trent sent messages to a number of people prior to the unrest, urging them to “burn the place down” and “make it the maddest night in Tamworth history”, according to Staffordshire Police.

Cleaver pleaded guilty to riot in September at Stafford Crown Court.

At the time, it was the first conviction for the offence in the West Midlands after last summer’s disorder.

A police spokesperson said footage on his phone showed the moment the Holiday Inn’s window was smashed before a fire was ignited inside.

Prosecuting, Ms Raj Punia said Cleaver was seen throwing missiles at the police line.

He had possession of a fire extinguisher, she said, and used it against officers, spraying them in an effort to force them back.

In police interviews, Cleaver denied being at the riot and said he was at a gym.

He also told authorities he could not have attended the riot because he had a severe leg injury.

The prosecution maintained he was clearly present, and the court was shown footage of his involvement.

BBC News

Arrest, charge and latest sentencing results for violent disorder in Merseyside

By
February 13, 2025
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A man has been charged, another arrested and three youths sentenced as we continue to investigate the violent disorder last summer.

Shay Saville, 22, of Blossom Close, in Tarleton, Lancashire, has been charged in relation to the violent disorder in Southport on Tuesday 30 July 2024. He has been bailed to appear at Liverpool Magistrate’s Court on Friday 7 March.

A 17-year-old boy from Chester, as well as a 14-year-old boy and 13-year-old boy, both from Rock Ferry, appeared at Liverpool Youth Court yesterday, Tuesday 11 February, and were all handed 12-month referral orders for their actions in the disorder in Liverpool.

Meanwhile, a 24-year-old man from Southport was also arrested yesterday, Tuesday 11 February, on suspicion of violent disorder in Southport and he has been bailed pending further inquiries.

It brings the total number of arrests to 174, with 133 charged and 110 sentenced to a combined 210 years and four months in prison.

If you have any information about those who took part in the disorder, we would encourage you to contact us by calling 101, DM us @MerPolCC on social media or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Current galleries of people we would like to speak to can be found on our X and Facebook pages, and on our force website: Latest CCTV appeal in relation to summer disorder in Merseyside | Merseyside Police.

Merseyside Police

Mosque blast bid man jailed over summer riots

By
February 12, 2025
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A man who was previously jailed for trying to blow up a mosque has been sentenced to more than two years in prison for involvement in last summer’s riots.

Ex-soldier Simon Beech, 36, of Stoke-on-Trent, pleaded guilty in November to violent disorder after being captured on CCTV throwing a missile at police officers.

He was sentenced at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court to two years and three months in prison for his part in the riots, sparked after the killing of three girls in Southport, for which Axel Rudakubana was jailed last month for a minimum of 52 years.

In 2011 Beech, of Chell Heath, attempted to blow up a mosque in Stoke, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

He was arrested last August after disturbances broke out in in Hanley.

In 2011, Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court heard Beech and another man – Garreth Foster – ran a pipe into the mosque from a nearby gas meter in a bid to spark an explosion.

The building sustained damage put at £50,000 as a result of a fire that broke out.

Beech told the court during his 2011 trial he had been a member of the English Defence League and the British National Party, but said he was not racist and did not believe his views to be extreme.

Commenting on his guilty plea after the riots, chairman of City Central Mosque Amjid Wazir said Beech did not seem to have learned any lessons.

Disorder spread across England last summer partly due to false claims online about Rudakubana.

Mr Wazir praised the actions by police and the legal system to bring those responsible to justice.

“When the riots were happening in Stoke, and elsewhere in the country, people were so scared of going out,” he said.

“They were worried, they were nervous.”

BBC News

He tried to force his way into Sainsbury’s, he’s lucky he didn’t get in

By
February 10, 2025
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Owen Royden has avoided a jail term

A man hurled missiles and tried to force his way into a Sainsbury’s store as it was looted during rioting in Piccadilly Gardens. Owen Royden, who is homeless, was part of a group that gathered in Manchester city centre on Saturday, August 3 last year.

Part of the ‘very large crowd’ that assembled at around 2.30pm, Royden, 30, was caught on camera ‘throwing a cup to an opposing crowd’, Justin Hayhoe, prosecuting, told Manchester Crown Court.

Royden was also filmed ‘marching’ down Mosley Street behind a group which was ‘chanting in an offensive and really unpleasant way’. As he approached the Sainsbury’s store on Mosley Street, he ‘pulled his clothing up over his face’ and was part of a group which ‘tried to force their way in’.

A number of people have already been sentenced for looting the store. Royden didn’t enter and ‘gave up relatively quickly’, Mr Hayhoe added. Around 15 minutes later, he was seen throwing an unidentified object towards police as a person was being arrested and removed from the crowd at the bottom of Mosley Street. No one was hit or injured.

At around 4.30pm he was issued with a dispersal notice and ordered to leave the city centre. He was identified from footage and arrested a month later. “He decided to join in widespread disorder which caused considerable cost to the public and stores,” Mr Hayhoe said.

Royden, of no fixed address, admitted violent disorder at an earlier hearing. He has previous convictions including for arson and sexual assault.

Patrick Buckley said Royden had mental health difficulties. “He is well aware of the condition he suffers,” he said. “Whilst we all understand the degree of chaos which is caused by living on the streets.”

The Recorder of Manchester, Judge Nicholas Dean KC, told him: “You are only 30, but you have had a troubled time in the last few years.

“That is in part because of your mental health, in parts because of your use of alcohol and drugs. The violent disorder you have pleaded guilty to occurred at a time when, in this country, there was rioting and violent behaviour being perpetrated in ways far more serious than your participation.

“I don’t know what persuaded you to become involved, but involved you were, albeit in a way that can only accurately be described as peripheral. This combination of behaviour qualifies as amounting to violent disorder. But I have dealt with, probably, hundreds of cases of violent disorder and this is a case which falls at the very bottom end of the spectrum of seriousness of such offending.”

He said Royden had ‘got carried away with what others were doing.’ “You’re clearly a vulnerable man, in part because of your mental health, in part because of your addictions, and in part because of your homelessness,” he added.

Judge Dean said it was ‘fortunate’ he didn’t enter Sainsbury’s as ‘if you had involved yourself in looting a shop, I would have had no choice but to send you to prison.’

He imposed a 12 month community order with a nine month alcohol treatment requirement and 25 rehabilitation activity requirement days. “The elements of the sentence won’t solve your problems, but may help you solve them” Judge Dean said.

“You need to turn a corner and help yourself or else you’re likely to find yourself before the courts again and again, and that just means the likelihood of prison,” he added.

Manchester Evening News

Teens plead guilty to rioting in summer unrest

By
February 8, 2025
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Two teenagers have pleaded guilty to rioting, police have said, after disorder over the summer saw a hotel used by asylum seekers targeted by violent groups.

The Holiday Inn in Tamworth was attacked on 4 August as a wave of disorder swept the country.

Aged 14 and 17, the youths cannot be named for legal reasons, but Staffordshire Police said they were only the third and fourth people in the county to face the more serious charge of rioting.

They are due to be sentenced at Cannock Magistrates’ Court on 4 April.

The force said the17-year-old also admitted assaulting an emergency worker.

Officers said they had arrested 200 suspects last year in connection with violent disorder in Stoke-on-Trent and Tamworth, and a total of 82 people had so far been charged.

They said they expected more charges to follow, and that they had been trawling through footage from August to gather the evidence needed to bring cases to court.

Trouble broke out in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, on 3 August, during which police came under fire from missiles, including metal poles and bricks.

Rioters also targeted the Holiday Inn Express in Tamworth a day later, starting a fire.

The disorder was part of a wave of protests and riots that swept the UK in the wake of the Southport stabbings, driven in part by false claims the culprit was an asylum seeker.

BBC News

Two sentenced for abuse at asylum seeker hotel

By
February 7, 2025
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Two people have received suspended jail terms after admitting racially harassing asylum seekers at a Rotherham hotel, days before mass disorder at the site.

Debbie Walker told people inside the Holiday Inn Express at Manvers a “protest” was “starting now” on 31 July last year, Sheffield Magistrates’ Court heard. Disorder broke out the following weekend.

Lee Frettsome told those inside “I don’t like the colour of your skin or your people… your time will come,” prosecutor Rob Coyne told the court on Wednesday.

Walker and Frettsome admitted racially or religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress, and received community orders and nine-month sentences suspended for 18 months.

‘Venomous’

District Judge James Gould said the defendants, who have been in an on-and-off relationship for 25 years, “displayed little insight” into the harm they caused.

He said the fact they knew about events to come was “of note”, given the context of mass violent disorder the following weekend, although they did not take part.

“You had been monitoring social media and no doubt seizing on distorted, unfounded and racially motivated views,” he added.

“The abuse that you both issued was venomous.”

Both Frettsome, 53, and Walker, 50, were “acting aggressively” to asylum seekers, witnesses said, with Walker heard saying “I will kill you all”.

Walker, of Billingley View, Bolton-upon-Dearne, shouted a profanity about Allah at a security guard, said “I will come back” and banged on the glass with her fists.

A member of security staff said in a statement: “I haven’t caused these people any upset. I don’t understand what their intention is.”

He said he was “saddened people want to take time out of their day to upset service users”.

‘Entrenched, warped and racist’

Erika Hradecka, defending, said Walker’s 25-year history of mental ill health, including diagnoses of paranoid schizophrenia and Fregoli syndrome, meant she was “probably not fully aware of what she was doing”.

She added that Frettsome, of Bateman Square, Thurnscoe, who served in the South African army in the 1980s, “says he is not racist, and he is ashamed and remorseful”.

Judge Gould said the couple had “expressed entrenched, warped and racist views”, but that he viewed Walker’s offending in the context of her illness.

Other than Walker having one police caution for cannabis possession, neither had previous convictions or cautions.

Frettsome was ordered to do 10 rehabilitation activity requirement days and 120 hours’ unpaid work. Walker was given 15 rehabilitation requirement days.

Both pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and will pay £85 in costs and a £187 surcharge.

BBC News

Woman sentenced following disorder and burglary in Southport

By
February 4, 2025
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A woman has been sentenced today, Monday 3 February, for her role in violent disorder in Southport last summer.

Emma McAteer, of Pollard Road in Wavertree, was arrested and charged on Monday 27 January, with violent disorder and burglary in Southport on Tuesday 30 July.

She appeared at Liverpool Crown Court today after pleading guilty at a previous hearing.

The 26-year-old was captured on CCTV throwing three missiles at police officers on Sussex Road. She then pushes through the crowd gathered outside Windsor minimart, enters the shop via a broken open shutter and steals items from the shelf. She is then seen carrying out stolen goods in her arms.

Today, McAteer, was sentenced to two years and four months in prison.

Detective Inspector Paula Jones said: “McAteer has been jailed today for the role she played in the large-scale violent disorder which took place in Southport and resulted in numerous police officers being injured and property being damaged.

“The part she played that day in a community that was in mourning was despicable, and she has now been brought to justice for her disgraceful actions.”

The total number of people arrested for disorder in Merseyside now stands at 171, with 129 charged and 107 sentenced to a combined 210 years and four months in prison.

We would encourage anyone with information to contact us by calling 101 or anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Current galleries of people we would like to speak to can be found on our X and Facebook pages, and on our force website: Latest CCTV appeal in relation to summer disorder in Merseyside | Merseyside Police.

Merseyside Police

Criminal who threw stones at police in riot jailed

By
February 3, 2025
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A heavily-convicted criminal who threw rocks at police and tried to set a bin on fire during anti-immigration riots has been jailed for more than two years.

Lucas Taylor was part of a 400-strong mob that confronted police after peaceful protests turned violent in Middlesbrough on 4 August 2024, Teesside Crown Court heard.

The disorder was one of a number of such violent outbreaks in towns and cities across England in the wake of the murder of three girls in Southport.

Taylor, 44, had initially denied a violent disorder charge but changed his plea to guilty on the opening day of his trial. He was jailed for 25 months.

About 1,000 people were estimated to have joined a protest march in the town, with the procession down Linthorpe Road initially peaceful, prosecutor Rachel Masters said.

But violence broke out when an item was thrown at the march from the direction of Claremont Road, a residential street which was quickly blocked off by police, the court heard.
‘Heat of the moment’

About 400 people, including Taylor, challenged a line of officers at the junction of Linthorpe Road and Ayresome Street at about 16:00 BST with the intention of drawing the police into violence, Ms Masters said.

Taylor, of Worcester Street in Middlesbrough, was caught on camera and seen by police throwing rocks towards officers and attempting to set a wheelie bin on fire, the court heard.

He was arrested several days after the riot after attacking a security guard at Aldi, the court heard.

The court heard Taylor had 141 convictions for 320 offences on his criminal record, including for theft, pubic disorder, drugs and assaults.

In mitigation, Richard Bennett said Taylor was not an instigator of the violence but had been “extremely foolish” and “got caught up in the heat of the moment”.

BBC News