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An armchair thug who encouraged rioters to attack a hotel housing asylum seekers over social media has become the first person jailed for inciting recent disorder across the UK online.
Jordan Parlour, 28, admitted to publishing posts on Facebook last week which encouraged violence at a hotel in Leeds where 200 asylum seekers and refugees.
He was sentenced with 20 months behind bars in Leeds Crown Court this afternoon, after he wrote on Facebook: “Every man and their dog should be smashing f*** out Britannia Hotel.”
It comes after prime minister Keir Starmer issued a warning to those who promoted violent disorder and whipped up racist hatred online that they would not be safe from the law.
“Whether you’re directly involved or whether you’re remotely involved, you’re culpable, and you will be put before the courts if you’ve broken the law,” Starmer said.
He also confirmed there will be a review the criticised Online Safety Bill, which London Mayor Sadiq Khan said was not fit for purpose.
Sentencing, Judge Guy Kearl KC, accepted Parlour did not partake in the violence but said: “There can be no doubt you were inciting others to do so, otherwise why post the comments?”
Defending barriester Nicholas Hammon told the judge his client was “not part of any sinister group activity designed to stir up violence”.
Parlour, who appeared to blow a raspberry as he left court, is one of many to have been sentenced today for racially motivated crimes.
Tyler Kay, 26, was jailed for 38 months on Friday after stirring up racial hatred by also using social media to call for rioters to set alight hotels housing asylum seekers.
The father-of-three was jailed for 38 months Northampton Crown Court just two days after writing and sharing the posts, which Judge Adrienne Lucking KC described as “utterly repulsive”.
Kay posted retweeted a post on X from a Tory councillor’s wife which called for mass deportation and read: “Set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards”, adding “if that makes me racist, so be it.”
The judge told him he had a “fundamentally racist” mindset, adding: “I am sure that when you intentionally created the posts you intended that racial hatred would be stirred up.”
Stacey Vint, 34, pushed a burning wheelie bin into a police line before falling onto the floor and being arrested in Middlesbrough town centre has been jailed for 20 months.
She was part of the group who set a wheelie bin on fire then pushed it into a police cordon - but she fell on the ground right at the feet of the police in the process.
In another wheelie bin incident, Leanne Hodgson, 43, went viral online after a video emerged of her attempting to push wheelie bins into a police line in Sunderland last Friday.
Hodgson has been jailed for two-and-a-half years after also calling one police officer a “f****** black c***” and deliberately running into another.
Newcastle Crown Court was told that she was “clearly under influence of alcohol and shouting abuse at officers”, with one officer describing Hodgson “running straight at him and colliding with him”.
More people are set to be convicted for stirring up racist hate online later today.
One of them is Richard Williams, 34, of Buckley, Flintshire, who shared a derogatory meme concerning migrants in a Facebook group dedicated to the protests, Mold Magistrates’ Court heard, and pleaded guilty to one count of sending menacing messages.
Earlier, two men were jailed after attacking “pro-EDL” protestors when rival demonstrations clashed in Leeds last week.
Sameer Ali, 21, was jailed for 20 months, while Adnan Ghafoor, 31, was jailed for 18 months.
CCTV footage showed a group of Asian men kicking and punching a group of four white men, who had allegedly racially abused the Asian group with slurs including “f*** Allah”, among other racial slurs.
