Teenagers, drunks and men who saw red — the rioters in court as justice is served

The 17-year-old, his beard failing to conceal the roundness of his baby cheeks, stood with his hands clasped behind his back as he pleaded guilty to stealing £4,000 of vapes during riots that tore through Liverpool city centre last weekend.
His mother dabbed at her eyes with tissue stuffed inside her handbag as the court heard how the teenager was caught on CCTV smashing the window of a convenience store and later on a balcony throwing missiles at the police.
A couple of hours later, in the same building, another mother was fighting back tears as she tried to make eye contact with her two sons. Adam and Ellis Wharton, sentenced to 20 and 11 months each for looting a burnt-out community library. Adam, who by the age of 28 already has 16 convictions, appeared unfazed by the men in wigs and rows of journalists who had come to witness his case. He waved. His younger brother, who found himself sentenced for the first time, stared straight ahead.
A devastated-looking man watched as a 69-year-old, probably his father, received a 32-month sentence for violent disorder and turning up with a wooden cosh to the same riot on Saturday night. William Morgan, a widower with three grown children, hung his head in shame as video was played of him yelling at officers trying to detain him. “I’m English, I’m English,” he cried.
In the midst of riots last week it was hard not to wonder where all these angry men — some militant racists, others reckless opportunists — had come from. Not politically speaking. The role social media and an increasingly polarised debate have played in radicalising these hooligans has been well documented and will no doubt continue to fill column inches in the weeks and months to come.
But where, literally, had they come from? Some, judging by their slurred chanting and unsteady gaits had clearly stumbled straight from the pub. Others, including a school governor and postmaster, had been trying their luck at the bingo before deciding to join the carnage.
Ellis Wharton, the court heard, was in bed when his brother knocked on the door after 10pm urging him to go out looting. The masked 22-year-old was caught at 2am holding a computer screen inside the library, which doubles as a food hub, before assaulting the officer attempting to arrest him and ending up with a black eye. He said he was sorry, insisting he had only gone out that night because he had been “blackmailed” by his brother, who was acting as a lookout.
What about the others? Had they wolfed down their mother’s spaghetti bolognese before heading out to the streets? Did they say where they were going? Were they encouraged or did they have to push their way past family members begging them to stay home?
Some had turned up en masse, on an unlikely family day out. Manchester magistrates’ court heard on Friday how a 15-year-old who had never been in trouble before was with some older relatives in the city centre when he became caught up in the violence.
In Southport I overheard one woman attempting to explain to her primary school-aged son what his dad was doing hurling bricks at police officers. A number had come straight that night from the vigil to the murdered children before gathering outside the mosque. How that tender scene could have inspired such hate continues to boggle the mind.
Then there were those who rioted alone and appeared in court with no one watching from the gallery, like John O’Malley, 43. He was sentenced to two years and eight months for being at the front of what the Liverpool recorder, Judge Andrew Menary, described as a “baying mob” in Southport. It may be that these men had no one attempting to talk sense into them. Maybe they had all long since given up.
Addiction and mental health problems were a recurrent theme but there were also those whose actions came with no easy explanation, who had no previous convictions and seemed to have simply, suddenly seen red.
Morgan — dubbed Britain’s “oldest rioter” — had never been to prison, his barrister said, was drunk at the time and now “profoundly” sorry for his actions. Sentencing the retired welder, Judge Menary said: “You are 69 years of age now but your advancing years did not stop you from taking part … It took three officers to detain you.”
Those passing judgment on the offenders did not mince their words. On Wednesday Judge Menary handed the first three men to be sentenced a total of seven years and two months in jail between them — telling them how they had “hijacked” the grief of Southport residents and “disgraced and damaged the reputations” of their home towns.
“Quite simply, those who deliberately participate in such disorder, causing injury, damage and fear to communities will inevitably be punished with sentences designed to deter others from similar activity,” he added.
That deterrence looked to have worked when on Wednesday night a suspected 100 further far-right protests failed to materialise. The speed and efficiency with which these cases have been processed, after Sir Keir Starmer promised swift punishment for those involved, has been startling to witness.
The defendants, on the whole, seemed stunned by how quickly the ground had shifted beneath their feet, having gone from lawlessly roaming the streets to finding themselves with lengthy sentences within a matter of days. On first appearance in the magistrates, some appeared defiant, with one banging on the glass, giving the judge the middle finger and shouting obscenities. By the time they appeared in the crown court their expressions were often blank.
The harshest words were reserved for the men in Manchester who were filmed surrounding and beating up a lone black man in the city centre last weekend. On Friday Anthony Livesey, 31, and Colin Demulder, 36, were remanded into custody after admitting violent disorder. District Judge Lucy Hogarth told the former: “I have worked in criminal justice for nearly 30 years and I am not often lost for words but this offence that was committed by you and your friends is one of the most cowardly and disgraceful cases I have ever experienced.”
It was on Friday afternoon, however, at the end of a long and depressing week that two of the saddest cases were brought before Manchester magistrates’ court.
A boy who admitted spending his 14th birthday targeting a Holiday Inn housing asylum seekers in Newton Heath broke down in tears as the court heard how he had been influenced by social media. Granting him bail, Judge Joanne Hirst told the teenager: “If you were an adult you’d be going to prison for more than three years for this offence.”
He was followed by the youngest rioter to be brought to justice so far — a 13-year-old who admitted throwing bricks at the hotel, goading police and attempting to take their hats. He was just 12 at the time of the events last Wednesday night. “I don’t even see that he’s racist, we have family members who are mixed,” his mother said. “I think he must have just followed suit.”
Yet the judge did not seem convinced, giving the boy strict bail conditions to abide by which she said were to “keep asylum seekers safe from people like you”.
If some of these rioters appeared like giants who had suddenly been cut down to size behind the tinted glass of the dock, the reality is that others are just little boys — so young they needed the terms “sentence” and “conviction” explained to them. Their actions have left the nation with more questions than they themselves could possibly answer.