A teen who celebrated his 18th birthday by joining a far right hate mob and attacking police has been jailed for a year and eight months.
On his arrest, after being involved in two consecutive nights of violence, Bobby Shirbon told police: ‘It’s OK, everybody else is doing it.’
In jailing Shirbon, Judge Francis Laird, KC, told him: ‘What is particularly troubling is that July 31st was your 18th birthday, a day that should have been joyous and cause for celebration.
‘But it ended up with you confronting police officers as part of an ugly, aggressive and violent mob.’
Shirbon, of Hartlepool, was part of major disturbances in the town on July 31st in the wake of the killing of three young girls in Southport.
It comes as:Â
Bobby Shirbon has been jailed after spending his 18th birthday hurling objects at police during disorder in Hartlepool
Police were sent out in force to keep the peace in Hartlepool after up to 300 people turned out on the streets causing disorder
A riot officer with a dog stands in front of a burning police car in Hartlepool after the protest turned violent
Teesside Crown Court heard the violence involved up to 300 people whipped up by social media posts giving the addresses of asylum seekers living in the centre of the town.
Rachel Master, prosecuting, said: ‘It was observed that Shirbon was present at the scene with another man.
‘He was part of a group throwing bottles, wooden planks, plastic bottles and housebricks and the defendant was seen to smash windows and cause damage.’
Shirbon, who admitted two counts of violent disorder, evaded arrest on July 31st and was out again the next night, hurling beer bottles at a police van while dressed in a balaclava.
Police officers on the streets of Hartlepool following a violent protest last WednesdayÂ
Police Officers walk past a burnt out police vehicle as they are deployed on the streets of Hartlepool following a violent protest last Wednesday
Ms Masters said: ‘He was arrested and found to be in possession of a balaclava and told he was being arrested because witnesses had seen him throw a beer bottle at the police van.
‘He replied to police ‘it’s OK everybody else is doing it.’
Michael Cahill, mitigating, said that Shirbon — like two other rioters jailed over the Hartlepool violence — had spent the earlier part of the evening at the bingo.
He said: ‘He is a very young man, a care leaver, who has been able to get this far in life without troubling the court system.
‘He had been to the bingo with his family earlier and saw on social media there was a disturbance in town and very foolishly he went to see what was going on.’
Firefighters tend to a burning police car burns as officers are deployed on the streets of Hartlepool last Wednesday
Riot police on the streets of Hartlepool last WednesdayÂ
Shirbon now joins the growing number of people who have been convicted after rioting broke out across Britain in the wake of the Southport stabbings.
Ryan Sheers, who yelled ‘I pay your wages’ at embattled officers before a police dog nipped him, wept in court as he was jailed for more than two years today.
The 28-year-old and his boyfriend Steven Mailen, 54, had spent the day at the bingo together before walking into the middle of the disorder that rocked Hartlepool on July 31.
Each received sentences of two years and two months in prison by a judge who told them the public were ‘rightly outraged by the behaviour seen on the streets of this country.’
Elsewhere, two rioters who were both ‘at the forefront’ of violent disorder across Britain last week were jailed for a total of more than five years.
A crowd gathers on the street of Hartlepool as riot police hold shieldsÂ
A police car burns on the streets of Hartlepool during the violenceÂ
Britain’s oldest rioter William Nelson Morgan, 69, and gas fitter John O’Malley, 43, were jailed for two years and eight months each in the first televised sentencing of the riots.
Morgan, a semi-retired welder, was armed with a wooden cosh as he took to the streets with a group of about 100 thugs who damaged businesses and buildings and threw missiles at police on County Road, Liverpool, on Saturday night. They also set fire to a library.
He was sentenced alongside O’Malley who rioted outside a mosque in Southport last Tuesday in a crowd of 1,000 people, was told that he was ‘at the front of what was essentially a baying mob’.
Three men who took part in the riots in Plymouth, including one who was floored by police after ‘spitting on officers and shields’, were also jailed today for a total of more than six years.
Police officers on the streets of Hartlepool on WednesdayÂ
A line of police officers stand their ground during a violent protest in HartlepoolÂ
Some cases have been fast-tracked through the courts as the government looks to send a message to anyone involved in the civil unrest. As the rioters were being jailed, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer called another emergency COBRA meeting. Â
Far-right thugs are thought to have engineered riots across the country after false information about the suspect in the case was spread on social media – including a claim that he was an asylum seeker and a Muslim.
Axel Rudakubana, an 18-year-old born in Cardiff and living in Banks, Lancashire, has been charged with murdering Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine.
He has also been charged with 10 counts of attempted murder and possession of an offensive weapon.
