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Home Office warns UK rioters of '32 years in prison' sentence

by DD Staff

August 07, 2024

Home Office warns UK rioters of '32 years in prison' sentence

key takeaways

Anyone participating in or planning to participate in tonight's UK riots has received a strong warning from the Home Office.

Not too many days after violent crowds in parts of the UK including Hull and Sunderland set cars on fire and looted businesses, police are bracing for further violence tonight as they mobilise across as many as 100 towns and cities in England and Wales.

In Sheffield, there is a noticeable police presence, and in Birmingham, stores have boarded their shopfronts and closed early to guard against potential looting and destruction in the event that far-right demonstrators show up as expected.

Tonight, the Home Office warned that demonstrators could face sentences totalling 32 years in prison for offences including rioting, violent disorder, criminal damage and inciting racial hatred.

The Home Office said: "Anyone involved in criminal disorder or violent thuggery on UK streets will have to pay the price."

It then linked a photo which showed: Rioting - up to 10 years.

Violent disorder - up to five years. Criminal damage - up to 10 years. Inciting racial hatred - up to seven years.

While a judge would probably order sentences to run concurrently rather than consecutively, it is technically 32 years' worth of jail time if convicted of all four offences to the maximum possible length of sentence in these sentencing guidelines.

The UK legal definition of a riot is: "(1)Where 12 or more persons who are present together use or threaten unlawful violence for a common purpose and the conduct of them (taken together) is such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his personal safety, each of the persons using unlawful violence for the common purpose is guilty of riot."

The Public Order Act 1986, in which this is enshrined, goes on to state that it is 'immaterial' whether rioters threaten violence simultaneously or not, and that people of 'reasonable firmness' don't actually need to be present at the scene in order for the alarm or distress to be proven, just that the group's presence would cause alarm theoretically. It adds that riot can be committed in private as well as public places and that rioters can be fined as well as jailed for up to 10 years.