As thugs smashed shops and wreaked violence in Hull city centre during last summer’s riots, Elizabete Zvirgzdina and Lucy Houghton grabbed a basket and helped themselves to stock from Lush and Shoezone stores
Two teenagers gallingly lined their pockets with Crocs and bath bombs as they brazenly looted city centre shops during last summer’s riots.
Elizabete Zvirgzdina and Lucy Houghton helped themselves to stock as shops were smashed and looted during the wave of violence last summer, in which thugs across the country brought violence and destruction to UK streets following the Southport attacks. The two were named and shamed after admitting their role in the shameful displays in August last year.
Appalling images showed yobs breaking into a Lush and Shoezone store in Hull city centre following a nearby riot on what was a weekend of violence described as “a stain on this city”. The two both handled stolen Croc-type sandals which had been taken from the Shoezone by another man and dumped on the pavement.
Zvirgzdina, 19, admitted burglary at the Lush store in Jameson Street, Hull, involving entering the shop as a trespasser and stealing “multiple products” of an unknown value, on August 3, Hull Live reports. She also admitted burglary with intent to steal at the 02 store, also in Jameson Street.
Houghton, also 19, also admitted handling the stolen goods at Hull crown court on Friday. The court heard that shoes, which had been taken from the raided store, in Jameson Street, were put on the pavement outside the shop and both Zvirgzdina and Houghton picked them up and stole them.
CCTV showed Zvirgzdina also entering an O2 store at 6.37pm after the windows had been previously smashed, showing her wandering around but not taking anything. Minutes later, she entered the Lush and even picked up a basket, helping herself to as much stock “as she could carry” from the popular cosmetics store.
The two were later “seen with several pairs of Crocs in their hands,” said prosecutor Jennifer Gatland. Both women handed themselves in to the police on August 5. When Zvirgzdina was searched, she was found in possession of cannabis. Judge Mark Bury said: “That wasn’t very clever – going to the police station with cannabis.”
Zvirgzdina told police that she had drunk five to seven vodka and Cokes. She went to the protest outside the Royal Hotel in Ferensway and said that it was about “kicking all the foreigners out of the hotel”.
She admitted being outside Shoezone and picking up the Crocs and going around Lush with a basket. She claimed that she had gone into O2 “for 30 seconds” and, during the incidents, she had “recorded it on TikTok Live”, the court heard.
“There was some degree of planning,” said Miss Gatland. “Clearly, there was substantial impact and a substantial degree of loss caused by the loss and damage.” Zvirgzdina and Houghton had no previous convictions.
Claire Holmes, mitigating, said: “Both defendants behaved in an appalling way on this particular day but, since then, they have done all that they could to try to put forward their best mitigation. They both handed themselves in to the police station.
“They were both in drink, which is no excuse. Neither defendant seeks to excuse their behaviour in any way. They are both apologetic.” Judge Bury said that one of them later claimed that she was not in drink.
He asked Zvirgzdina: “What were you thinking of then?” She replied: “I didn’t think anything. I just saw everyone else doing it so I thought it was acceptable.”
When Judge Bury told her that it was not acceptable, she hastily added: “I know it’s not acceptable but I see everyone else doing it.” She said that her father lived in Latvia and her mother lived in Gilberdyke. Zvirgzdina said that she had a “little brother” and admitted that her behaviour was a very bad example to set him. “I apologise,” she said. She was working. Judge Bury told her: “For goodness’ sake, stay out of trouble.”
Houghton told the court that she was unemployed. “I have applied for jobs,” she said. Her mother was “ashamed” of her. “I am sorry,” she said.
Judge Bury told her: “You are better than this. You have got to do something with your life. You did something really stupid, although you didn’t yourself break in to any store.”
Judge Bury told both women: “August 3 of last year represents a stain on this city. There was large-scale public disorder of a totally unpleasant, racist and violent type. Police officers were injured. Racial minorities were being verbally abused.
“You were not involved in that, either of you, but later in the day, when the shops had been looted and broken into by people with bats or sometimes just their boots, property was being stolen by people who thought it was the right thing to do to help themselves.” Zvirgzdina also admitted a separate offence of possessing cannabis on August 5.
Judge Bury added: “Both of you are totally ashamed of the things that you did. Both of you are far better people than this. I believe you two are the only two defendants that I have not locked up in these proceedings, so if you want to know how lucky you are, that’s how lucky you are.”
Zvirgzdina was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence and 12 days’ rehabilitation. Houghton was given 40 hours’ unpaid work and 15 days’ rehabilitation.
Daily Mirror
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