U.K. men get 4-year sentences for Facebook riot posts

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20093556-93/u.k-men-get-4-year-sentences-for-facebook-riot-posts/

by noahc • 15 years ago

51 66 15 years ago

news.cnet.com

Why would you write this article, but not include the text of the posts?

andyking2• 15 years ago

Jordan Blackshaw's event was entitled "Smash Down in Northwich Town" and included an invitation for something called the "Mob Hill Massive Northwich Lootin'" to meet behind the McDonald's in the town centre at 1pm. It also included the words "We'll need to get this kickin' off all over."

The Warrington posts by Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan were very similar, although he did actually title his event "The Warrington Riots." It was a similar invitation to meet at a location in the centre of the town at 7pm.

The rest of the information on the groups has not been released by police and has been removed from Facebook. (Source: I work in the media in the area concerned and have the police news release in front of me.)

monochromatic• 15 years ago

Trying not to get arrested here.

sfk• 15 years ago

Much better article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/16/facebook-riot-calls...

"Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, of Latchford, Warrington, used his Facebook account in the early hours of 9 August to design a web page entitled The Warrington Riots. The court was told it caused a wave of panic in the town. When he woke up the following morning with a hangover, he removed the page and apologised, saying it had been a joke. His message was distributed to 400 Facebook contacts, but no rioting broke out as a result."

nitrogen3• 15 years ago

There are a number of technological misrepresentations in your quotation that would seem inconsequential to the average judge or journalist, but actually make a huge difference in meaning and effect:

...used his Facebook account...to design a web page...

The word "design" implies stronger intent and effort than is actually required to post an event to Facebook. "Web page" is not typically used to refer to user-generated content on Facebook, but rather a distinct presence on the Internet that exists independently of and can be accessed without assistance from Facebook. Saying "web page" rather than "Facebook post" implies a much wider intended exposure than is actually likely.

His message was distributed to 400 Facebook contacts...

This number dropping seems like a journalistic scare tactic. Probably half or more of the users on Facebook have hundreds of Facebook "friends." Saying the message "was distributed to 400...contacts" implies deliberate, intended dissemination of the post. It is far more likely that the post simply ended up in his news feed automatically, and that many of his 400 friends didn't even see the post. It is also possible that he invited all of his Facebook friends to the event, in which case all 400 would receive the invitation, but that is far, far different from, say, distributing a crime-inciting newsletter to 400 willing subscribers, or sending instructions to an active criminal network of 400 members.

jellicle2• 15 years ago

So the guy posted a Facebook event, inviting people to the riots. Humorous, funny, probably took all of three minutes to accomplish, no harm done, four years in prison.

Meanwhile the banksters who have stolen billions from the public treasury have not even been charged, and won't be.

cellis• 15 years ago

Make a post on Facebook, get sentenced to the Men of the Night's Watch. Steal two scoops of ice cream, get your hand cut off!

bigwally• 15 years ago

Steal a loaf of bread and get sent to Australia...

shabble• 15 years ago

ObRacistJoke:

Australian Immigration Officer: Do you have any prior criminal convictions?

Tourist: I didn't realise that it was still a requirement.

Shenglong2• 15 years ago

Social media is no different from any other form of communication for trying to incite crime. Drunkenness is not an excuse for other crimes, and should not be for this one.

biafra• 15 years ago

Here in Germany drunkenness can reduce your sentence and your criminal responsibility.

Shenglong2• 15 years ago

Spoke too soon. Culture gap I guess

Edit: took out attempt at humor

alain• 15 years ago

4 years... There are murderers who do less.

Stevenup7002• 15 years ago

What about the actual posts?

Daniel_Newby5• 15 years ago

"Jordan Blackshaw, left, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, both pleaded guilty to using Facebook in attempts to fuel riots in Cheshire. They have been jailed for four years"

One wonders what sort of lawyer they had that recommended a guilty plea, or in the absence of a lawyer what was done to encourage that plea.

"Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, of Latchford, Warrington, used his Facebook account in the early hours of 9 August ..."

Dateline of story: Tuesday 16 August 2011

One also wonders how their lawyer allowed the situation to progress from alleged offense to media circus regarding four year sentence IN LESS THAN A WEEK. I don't know how Britain usually does things, but in the U.S. a non-violent victimless offender would generally spend most of the first week out on bail awaiting the gathering of evidence for a proper arraignment. Methinks someone has been railroaded.

andyking2• 15 years ago

This was a crown court case, which is even more concerning. Crown court is used for serious offences which require a punishment of more than six months in prison, so for a case such as this to get from arrest to multi-year crown court sentence in a week is hugely concerning. A case has to first be heard in magistrates' court and handed to crown court, so it will have been in the hands of Chester Crown Court for just a day or two.

But for more minor offences attracting sentences under six months, magistrates' courts have been sitting through the night to "process" literally thousands of small-time, mainly first offender criminals.

Courts have been under great political pressure to serve swift and tough "justice" such that minor offences have attracted fairly lengthy prison sentences. Take the case of the mother of two young children who slept through the Manchester riots, but whose flatmate gave her a pair of stolen shorts from a store the morning after. She got five months in prison, for an offence which (if it even got as far as court) would normally attract a period of unpaid community work and/or a fine. [http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1455638_m...]

I personally can't see how any of these people can get a fair trial when the court is sitting at 3am, it's less than a week since their arrest, and politicians are pressing hard on unpaid magistrates for disproportionate sentences in a vague attempt to give the impression that a government that's fairly weak and lacking in public support is being "tough on crime."

I feel for those who are caught up in this system right now. I am no apologist for criminals, but at the moment, people leading fairly fragile and frugal existences are having even that taken away for political point-scoring.

shazamjad4• 15 years ago

I wouldn't feel for those having justice dealt to them, not one bit. They not only participated in the riots - but made an effort to promote them.

As for the woman who accepted stolen goods from her flatmate - she deserved it. The right course of action would've been to advise her flatmate to turn herself in and return the goods, or actually call the police herself. She decides to go through the stolen goods, picking what she wants and wearing it.

As far as community work / fines - there's been a few articles on various newspapers by community workers and enforcers who plainly state that it has little to no impact. Dig a little deeper, and you'll find prisons in the UK happen to be quite nice; offering lot better facilities than many hostels. Plus, having spoken to a lot of officers, many state that if you don't clamp down on people when they break minor laws / rules - soon the boundaries shift and before they know it; they've become criminals.

Having witnessed first hand the devastation and destruction in Hackney - most small business owners who lost pretty much their whole lively hoods would state that the sentences being handed out aren't enough - and I whole heartedly agree. What still irks me is that nearly two-thirds of my hard earned money is being taken by the government in taxes, and is feeding these people in a prison cell; likely where they have access to a TV with Sky, a PlayStation, 3 good meals a day, clean bedsheets and clothes etc etc.

ErrantX2• 15 years ago

This is just the tip of the ice berg; the most disparate crime/punishment of many.

Don't get me wrong; I've always been in favour of effective punishment - but this is totally the wrong time for our justice system to "go spare".

Firm but fair is important in situations like this. I approve of punishing these two, who did something idiotic with the potential for great harm. A slap on the wrists, or a small fine maybe.

The problem is fear. Certain parts of our population are scared to he'll by these riots (ironically, most have probably not been within 10 miles if a riot...) fed by the media and a government trying to save their image. (I mean, they've switched from criticising the police for being heavy handed during the G20 protest to criticising them for being too standoffish! And the media are lapping it up)

I've been as disapointed in our justice system this week as I have been with the rioters.

iaskwhy• 15 years ago

Well, I can understand why they critic the police strategy, this would never get this out of control in most countries.

tzs• 15 years ago

Do courts in the UK have any flexibility in sentencing? Do defendants generally know what evidence the prosecution has against them?

If so, then I'd expect guilty pleas to often be sensible. If you know you are guilty, and you know that the prosecution has sufficient evidence to make it virtually certain you'll be convicted, why not plead guilty and hope that sways the court to leniency?

I'd expect a court to be more lenient with a defendant who admits his guilt and shows remorse for the crime than one who insists he is not guilty when he clearly is and clearly knows that he's going to be found guilty.

nitrogen3• 15 years ago

What is the motivation for requiring a plea of not guilty before going to trial, apart from saving the court time and money? Why not default to a trial in all cases, allow the defendant to stop the trial by pleading guilty, but ensure that not pleading guilty is never seen as being unremorseful?

estel• 15 years ago

There's definitely leniency. Depending on the case, I believe the standard tariff reduction for a sufficiently early Guilty plea is 1/3.

arethuza• 15 years ago

They both plead guilty - what exactly were their lawyers supposed to do?

Daniel_Newby5• 15 years ago

Their lawyers were supposed to be there beforehand, lawyering. Advising not to talk to the police, getting bail, doing the discovery investigation, establishing chain of custody of evidence, examining witnesses under the oath of perjury, establishing motivation and intent, establishing mental competence at time of offense, comparing the complaint to precedent, determining if the complaint corresponds to an actual law, excluding inadmissible evidence, getting a jury trial, changing the jury trial to a less hostile venue, and so forth.

Any lawyer with a pulse would have done at least one of these things, but not a single one appears to have been done. Therefore their legal counsel was probably almost certainly impeded in some way. The judge appears to accept this impediment without blushing, so the bad counsel was probably planned. In other words, they are being railroaded.

I suspect the judge was sick and tired of 20 years of handing out wrist slaps at the behest of Parliament and their politically correct ministries and took the opportunity to land a few punches while the gloves are off. In other words, it is a continuation of the riots by other means.

Mvandenbergh2• 15 years ago

If they'd just generally called for a riot that would be one thing (possibly still illegal), these guys set a particular time and place which is what did them in.

Blackshaw at least (because he actually showed up for his planned riot, the other chap didn't) would go to prison if he did this anywhere in the world. Even in the USA with its extremely strong protections for speech, inviting people to meet at a set place and time for the purpose of rioting is illegal.

Even Sutcliffe-Keenan (who at least was smart enough to delete his event from facebook after he sobered up) basically did the equivalent of calling a bomb-threat.

bugsy5• 15 years ago

Hey we're "having a riot" out by the McDonalds on Orangethorpe Avenue in Anaheim tomorrow at 4pm. Hope you can make it, assuming free speech still exists in the US, unlike the british police state we fought to free ourselves from.

PS come and get me coppers.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=laugh%20riot

Mvandenbergh2• 15 years ago

Free speech does not include planning a riot, any more than it does threatening to kill someone. This is one of the few exceptions to otherwise very strong rights to say whatever you want.

rmc• 15 years ago

If you want to see how a police state starts, look at what's happening in the UK now.

InclinedPlane3• 15 years ago

More accurately, look at what's been happening over the last several decades. The population has been disarmed bit by bit, first various gun rights were taken away until ultimately all gun rights were taken away in a hysterical response to the Dunblane massacre. Then every weapon was targeted, knives, batons, everything. Even self-defense rights were taken away, if you use your own fists in your own home to defend yourself against an attacker you could potentially go to jail. Meanwhile, British police powers have been growing out of control, with little to keep them in check. While the world made much note of the PATRIOT act in the US few people, even in the UK, paid much attention to the far more sweeping expansion of British police powers undertaken as "anti-terrorism" measures. All the while moving closer and closer to the ideal of a completely disempowered populace utterly dependent on the police for any degree of protection.

AndyJPartridge7• 15 years ago

FYI: We have been given the right to self defence in our own homes now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13957587

nkh• 15 years ago

Can someone from the UK comment on if 4-year sentences are typically served to full term. I believe in America, you can be sentenced to 4 years and only end up doing a few months of the actual sentence.

AndyJPartridge7• 15 years ago

You typically serve half of it over here, pending a hearing, "good behaviour" and any extra conditions a judge added.

(Which for these sort of offences are very unlikely to be applied.)

ErrantX2• 15 years ago

2 years. But I expect they'll be out befor that, or more likely overturned on appeal - once the heat/fear has calmed down then there will be less pressure for panic over reaction.

jellicle2• 15 years ago

Most people in the U.S. serve about 50-70% of their sentence behind bars. Stop watching Fox News. Parole conditions, if granted, are often onerous.

AndyJPartridge7• 15 years ago

I'm a UK guy.

I won't argue that these sentences are disproportionate.

But is it what we need in response to this? I'd argue yes.

The spark for these "riots" was a gentleman who was killed during an arrest. Bad times, of course. Very bad times.

But it's important to understand that the details of /exactly/ what happened here are currently officially unknown. The official report has not been released.

On the back of this, groups of people all over the UK decided to go on organised shoplifting spree's. When asked by the media "Why" they said things like "To get back our taxes, innit." [SIC]

Perhaps a few, who are at the very least comfortable with criminal behaviour, need to be given these sorts of sentences - and then for the media to make it well known it's happened.

A deterrent. Unfortunate for those singled out for it, but perhaps one needed for the good of the whole society.

They looted charity shops for fucks sake. Parents supported the kids doing it.

Something had to be done. This was it.

dave1010uk• 15 years ago

Prison sentences, fines, comunity service, etc are already a deterrent to crime. These deterrents (and punishments) are considered proportionate to the crime by the judge/jury. I see no reason to single out rioting to be different, apart from emotional ones.

AndyJPartridge7• 15 years ago

But it hasn't acted as a deterrent, has it. The first tiny window of opportunity these organised shoplifters had, they went for it.

It wasn't rioting or a protest.

InclinedPlane3• 15 years ago

Bad people did bad things. Therefore brutally punish anyone who does anything bad, that'll keep everyone in line.

Perfectly logical, and perfectly medieval.

AndyJPartridge7• 15 years ago

I can see where you are coming from, but in the case of the two involved in this story, it's a bit deeper.

On ones own, it is unlikely the average man will head off to a mobile phone store, force the shutter open, smash the windows and head off inside to collect some iOS booty.

Collectively, a group of men are considerably more likely to do so.

Organising a group of people on Facebook to gather and go forth and cause problems in a town is therefore a very serious issue.

(In this case, nobody did gather, but what if they did? Millions of pounds worth of damage may have been caused - as it was in other towns.)

tlb• 15 years ago

Surprisingly swift justice. The average wait time for the crown court is 13-15 weeks [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Court].

mcantelon• 15 years ago

The law is certainly agile when representing the interests of the state, rather than citizens.

megablast3• 15 years ago

I think this is all about public perception, they are doing this to convince the public they are now in control, despite the fact that most people involved in the riots are free. I would not be surprised if this is appealed and changed to a more reasonable sentence, in a few months, when people are more calm.

VladRussian• 15 years ago

speaking about value of anonymity on Facebook in particular and on the Internet in general...

People pay dearly for the lack (or disregard?) of basic skills and practices (anonymity, wireless, encryption, route through server in another country, etc...) of how to exercise freedom of speech even in the countries where such freedom is known to not even be guaranteed by law, like Britain or Libya.

U.K. men get 4-year sentences for Facebook riot posts

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