Girl, 13, breaks down in tears on mother’s shoulder after being sentenced over riots
A 13-year-old girl who “hit and kicked” the doors of a migrant hotel in Hampshire cried on her mother’s shoulder as she was sentenced for her part in the summer’s unrest.
The schoolgirl – who became the youngest female sentenced over the riots yesterday, and cannot be named for legal reasons – had been convicted of threatening unlawful violence in mid-August.
At Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court, the girl sobbed as those in attendance were shown police bodycam footage of her assaulting the doors to Aldershot’s Potters International Hotel.
The 13-year-old, dressed in a cream jumper, leggings and trainers, and accompanied by her mother and stepfather, spoke quietly to confirm her name and address, before a timid back and forth with the judge saw her admit the migrants inside would have been “quite scared”.
Aldershot’s protests, in which a “mostly peaceful” crowd of “about 200 people” gathered outside the hotel before a smaller number entered its car park, have seen the 13-year-old and seven others charged with violent disorder.
Prosecutor David Fosler detailed how, “as the Crown see it, the incident did demonstrate very purposeful hostility towards a recognised racial group”.
Though in mitigation, Ruth Cassidy said the teen was aware she had been “completely unjustified” in taking part in the violence – despite her involvement in the incident being “very, very brief”.
Cassidy told the court the girl had been attending the protest peacefully as an “observer” with a friend and their parents when there was “encouragement” to go to the front and “see what’s going on”.
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She added: “She peers through the window and strikes the glass with her hands and feet a number of times. There is no damage caused.”
But District Judge Tim Pattinson told the teenager: “You were hitting and kicking a door at the hotel as we have seen… You were with a large number of other people all shouting and making threats of violence.
“All the people engaged in violent disorder did so in order to cause fear to the people inside the hotel.
“What you and the other people did must have caused them to be absolutely terrified.”
Pattinson asked her to imagine being on the “other side of that door” and how those inside would have felt – to which she replied: “Quite scared.”
He told the girl how many people involved in the summer’s nationwide disorder in the wake of the Southport stabbings had been imprisoned – but said that due to her age and her being “genuinely sorry”, he handed her a 12-month referral order.
After meeting with a Youth Offending Panel, the 13-year-old will likely be “doing jobs and putting something back into the community”, the judge said.
“I am not going to lock you up,” he told her, but said that if she did not engage, she would be brought back to court and could receive a “more severe punishment”.
The girl was also ordered to pay £111 in costs – which her mother must pay within a month.