THE APPEALS OF two young men imprisoned for using a social networking site to encourage disorder during the UK riots last August have been rejected.
Jordan Blackshaw, 20, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, were each sentenced to four years in jail by a judge at Chester crown court for their role in inciting violence through Facebook.
Blackshaw had created an event called ‘Smash Dwn [sic] in Northwich Town’, while Sutcliffe-Keenan created a page called ‘The Warrington Riots’ – which he said he deleted a matter of hours later.
Lawyers for the pair argued that the four year sentences they had been handed down were “manifestly excessive”, reports the BBC.
Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, sitting at the Court of Appeal in London upheld the terms handed down, saying that the men had used technology for a crime. “What both these appellants intended was to cause very serious crime. All this was incited at a time of sustained countrywide mayhem,” he said.
Lord Judge said that the imposition of such “severe sentences” were “intended to provide both punishment and deterrence”.
Before their original sentencing, Blackshaw pleaded guilty to encouraging others to commit riot, burglary and criminal damage in Northwich, while Sutcliffe-Keenan pleaded guilty to encouraging others to commit riot in Latchford near Warrington.
No actual disorder resulted in either case.
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