A woman has been jailed after taking a young boy to a summer riot in which a far-right mob attacked a hotel housing asylum seekers.
Aimie Hodgkinson-Hedgecox, 37, pleaded guilty to violent disorder after she was recorded shouting “incendiary and racist” comments at the police officers protecting asylum seekers in Tamworth’s Holiday Inn Express.
Hodgkinson-Hedgecox, who has 14 previous convictions involving 30 offences, has now been jailed for 27 months.
When handed her sentence at Stafford Crown Court, she complained towards friends and relatives in the gallery: “It’s a joke, it’s a f***ing piss-take.”
Footage shown to the court showed the rioter, wearing Crocs-style shoes, pulling an 11-year-old boy out of the way as a firework was aimed at police officers.
Hodgkinson-Hedgecox was “recording the unfolding violence”, Judge Jonathan Gosling said while passing the sentence. She was “clearly visible on the footage shouting incendiary and racist remarks”, he added.
The court heard Hodgkinson-Hedgecox, of Edale in Tamworth, Staffordshire, had intended to take the boy to a skate park but was caught up in the crowd on 4 August, when she decided to join the riot.
Stephen Rudge, defending, urged the court to consider unpaid community work as the punishment, arguing the defendant was “not somebody who holds overtly racist views or opinions”.
She had not contacted anyone else involved and left the area shortly after she was seen in three video clips, he said. Hodgkinson-Hedgecox “bitterly regrets” the decision to get involved, he added.
Prosecutor Fiona Cortese said Hodgkinson-Hedgecox had admitted she was shouting abuse about asylum seekers when she was arrested. During the riot, the hotel was damaged as petrol was poured inside and set alight, Ms Cortese added.
Judge Gosling said hundreds of people were involved in what was a serious attack, and ruled Hodgkinson-Hedgecox’s offence was seriously aggravated by the fact she had taken an 11-year-old boy to the scene.
“I accept you didn’t have a weapon and you didn’t use any direct violence yourself,” the judge said.
He added the riot had nothing to do with politics, nor was it a peaceful protest.
“Nobody is being punished for expressing their own views,” the judge told the court. “This was anarchy. You were lending support to an extremely violent racist protest… where lives were endangered.”
The Ministry of Justice said 388 people had been jailed over the violent disorder during the summer as of 3 October.
