UK
Boy, 12, who threw stones at police becomes youngest to be sentenced after Southport riots
A 12-year-old boy is believed to have become the youngest person sentenced after riots erupted in Southport this summer.
The boy – who cannot be named because of his age – previously admitted to a charge of violent disorder in the Merseyside town on 31 July after the fatal stabbing of three young girls.
Arriving at Liverpool Youth Court with his father on Tuesday, the boy was given a 12-month referral order and a three-month curfew order.
District Judge Wendy Lloyd also gave his father a six-month parenting order and ordered him to pay £85 in costs and £200 compensation to Southport Mosque.
The court was told the boy has no previous charges and has had a difficult home life.
Sentencing the youth, Ms Lloyd said: “These offences have shaken society to the core. It was an angry mob and you chose to be part of it.
“You have had a complicated and in many ways sad young life. But what you did that night was very wrong. It really was a horrible situation and you made it more horrible by engaging in throwing stones.
“Many police officers were hurt that night.”
Rioting erupted in multiple cities across the UK the day after six-year-old Bebe King, Alice da Silva Aguiar, aged nine, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, were stabbed in a rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July.
The youngster is believed to have been one of a group of people who threw missiles at a mosque and bricks at police officers after misinformation spread on social media that suspect Axel Rudakubana was an immigrant.
PC Bourhill of Merseyside Police said he was hit on the chin by a piece of concrete leaving him bleeding, then hit on the head by a second concrete missile, causing him to black out before being taken to hospital, the court heard.
He said in a statement: “I have never experienced such high level of violence towards police.”
Imam Sheik Ibrahim Hussein said in a statement he was locked inside the mosque as crowds chanted outside. Pic: PA
In all 93 police officers were injured in the trouble.
Like a ‘war zone’
Ibrahim Hussein, chairman of Southport Islamic Society Mosque, said in a statement that after the stabbings, three security guards sent by the Home Office turned up at the mosque.
He said he locked himself and a small number of worshippers inside the mosque as bricks were hurled at the building and crowds could be heard shouting: “We will get you out of here, you Muslim bastards.”
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Mr Hussein was escorted from the building at midnight and described the outside as looking like a “war zone”. He returned the next day to find council workers, the fire brigade and local residents clearing up.
Defending the boy, Heather Toohey, said that in terms of having an unstable upbringing, the youngster “ticks every box”.
She said he simply got “caught up” in the trouble, adding: “He knows he acted out of stupidity.”