England riots: Four year jail term for Facebook incitement

Rioting, looting spread from London to West Midlands, Merseyside, Bristol, Manchester from August 6 after a youth was shot dead by police in Totterham

PTI | November 17, 2011



A British court on Wednesday sent a stern warning to thugs using social media to incite riots by sentencing a man to four years in jail after he admitted inciting public disorder on Facebook during riots in England.

Jamie Counsel, 25, set up a page called Bring the Riots to Cardiff, later changed to Bring the Riots to Swansea.

The sentence should be a warning that anyone using modern media to incite riots would face stiff punishment, said the judge at Cardiff Crown Court.

Judge Nicholas Cooke said the terror caused by the riots was "incalculable".

The court heard that he created the page on August 9 as rioting hit London and other cities such as Birmingham and Bristol.

Daniel Webster, prosecuting, said Counsel's page had specified a time and location for the violent disorder to take place.

Initially, 36 people joined the page, with one writing about plans to target the House of Fraser store in Cardiff.

A further 35 people joined the page when it was renamed to refer to Swansea, the BBC reported.

He was arrested on August 10 after concerned members of the public contacted the police.

A wave of rioting, looting and arson spread from London to parts of the East and West Midlands, Merseyside, Bristol, Manchester and Gloucester from August 6 to 9 after a 29-year- old youth was shot dead by police in Totterham.

Sentencing him to four years, minus 96 days spent on remand, Cooke told Counsel: "The violent disorder cost vast sums of money... the terror to the public is incalculable."

Comments

 

Other News

Income Tax dept holds Ghatkopar Outreach on new IT Act

The Income Tax Department organised an outreach programme in Ghatkopar, Mumbai, to raise awareness about the key features of the Income Tax Act, 2025, effective April 1, 2026. The initiative is part of a nationwide effort to promote taxpayer awareness, simplify compliance, and strengthen a transparent, eff

Making AI work where governance is closest to people

India’s next governance leap may not solely come from digitisation. It will come from making public systems more intelligent, more adaptive, and more responsive to the dynamics at the grassroots. That opportunity is especially significant at the panchayat level, where governance is not an abstract po

Borrowing troubles: How small loans are quietly trapping youth

A silent crisis is playing out in the pocket of young India, not in stock markets or government treasuries, but in smartphones of college students and first-jobbers who clicked on the Apply Now button without reading the small print.  A decade ago, to take a loan, you had to do some paperwor

A 19th-century pilgrim’s progress

The Travels of a Sadhu in the Himalayas By Jaladhar Sen (Translated by Somdatta Mandal) Speaking Tiger Books, 259 pages, ₹499.00  

India faces critical shortage of skin donors amid rising burn cases

India reports nearly 70 lakh burn injury cases every year, resulting in approximately 1.4 lakh deaths annually. Experts estimate that up to 50% of these lives could be saved with adequate access to skin donations.   A significant concern is that around 70% of burn victims fall wi

Not just politics, let`s discuss policies too

Why public policy matters Most days, India`s loudest debates stop at the ballot box. We can name every major leader and recall every campaign slogan. Still, far fewer of us can explain why a widow`s pension is delayed or how a government school`s budget is actually approved. That


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter