Teenager jailed for role in Middlesbrough riots is freed on appeal

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A teenager jailed for his role in violent disorder in the summer riots will walk free after a successful appeal against his “harsh sentence”.

Dylan Willis was initially sentenced to 14 months detention after being convicted of smashing a restaurant window during disorder in Middlesbrough sparked by the Southport killings.

At the Court of Appeal on Thursday, judges were told that the sentences were “harsh” and “manifestly excessive” and should be reduced in what are thought to be the first appeals related to the summer unrest.

In their ruling, three judges quashed Willis’ original sentence and changed it to 14 months in a young offenders institution, suspended for two years, with up to 40 days of rehabilitation activity.

Mr Justice Bennathan, sitting with the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr and Lord Justice Holroyde, said: “We have concluded that this court should interfere with the decision below.”

Willis, appearing via video link from Holme House prison, appeared emotional as the decision was read out.

Others up for appeal included Ozzie Cush, Paul Williams and Aminadab Temesgen who all received prison or detention terms of between 10 months and two years two months.

The three judges dismissed appeals from Cush and Williams and altered then-19-year-old Temesgen’s sentence from 14 months in prison to 14 months in youth detention due to his age.

Baroness Carr said the disorder earlier this year was “fuelled by misinformation and far right sentiment, spreading to various towns and cities across the nation”.

She added: “In the context of widespread and significant public disorder, it is not only the precise individual acts of an offender that matter.

“It is the fact that the offender is taking part in violent disorder, threatening violence against other people or property, and is part and parcel of widespread threatening and alarming activity.

“That is the gravamen of the offending: being one of those who, by weight of numbers, pursues a common and unlawful purpose.

“Thus, whilst what an individual offender may have done themselves is of relevance, their acts must not be taken in isolation.”

Cush, 20, from Reading, was jailed for 10 months after pleading guilty to assaulting an emergency worker during a protest in central London.

Williams, then 45, was jailed for two years and two months in August after he threw metal fencing and a can of beer at police after goading officers during the rioting in Sunderland on August 2.

Temesgen, from Plymouth, was given a 14-month prison sentence after throwing bottles at police in August, which has now been altered to take place in youth detention.