A 12-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been handed a 12-month referral order for violent disorder during the riots on July 30 in Southport. He is believed to be the youngest person to appear in court for the riots. The Liverpool Youth Court heard that the boy had thrown two stones at police officers in front of the town’s mosque the day after a stabbing attack in which three girls were killed.
In addition to the referral order, the boy will be subject to a curfew between 21:00 and 07:00 each night for three months. District Judge Wendy Lloyd told the court that the boy had chosen to participate in an “angry mob” and had made the “horrible situation…all the more horrible by joining in and throwing stones.”
A referral order is a sentence available to the courts when dealing with young people under the age of 18 who have admitted an offence. It requires them to take part in a rehabilitation programme aimed at preventing them from re-offending in the future.
The chairman of the mosque in Southport that was attacked during the riot released a statement claiming that he feared for his life on the night in question. He added that he, three worshippers, and some men who were sent by the Home Office to provide security for the mosque armed themselves with metal poles in case they were attacked.
Despite all of this, the imam continued to lead prayers in the mosque, saying afterwards that he “ignored the missiles.” The boy’s defence lawyer, Heather Toohey, claimed that the boy was not involved in any racist chanting and that he had handed himself in at a police station, offering his “deepest regret and sympathies to the people of Southport.
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