Family members reacted angrily on Monday when two Dundee youths were each sentenced to three years in detention for attempting to incite riots in the city centre on Facebook.
Relatives of Shaun Ernest Divin (16), of Balunie Avenue, and Jordan McGinley (18), of Scotscraig Road, let out gasps of disbelief and wept in court and hugged each other as the sentences were handed down.
The pair helped run the Facebook event page in the wake of weeks of civil disobedience across other parts of the UK, with riots in English cities leading to deaths and businesses being destroyed.
The page, entitled Riot In The Toon, was viewed by over 2,000 people and centred on a planned riot in Dundee on August 17.
Sheriff Elizabeth Munro said: ”This is one of the worst breaches of the peace I have dealt with.”
She also sentenced Divin to an additional 12 months’ detention for breach of probation and three months for committing the offence while on bail, and told him she had considered remitting him to the High Court for sentence, given the seriousness of his actions.
Both pled guilty last month to a breach of the peace by conducting themselves in a disorderly manner and contributing to a Facebook listing inciting others to riot in Dundee on August 17.
Divin also admitted that he contributed a listing on his own page, while he was on bail.
As he was led away Divin shouted an expletive at Sheriff Munro, calling her ”sick”.
His grandmother Doreen said: ”People using knives get less than that all he was doing was sitting on his laptop bantering with his mates.”
His grandfather John added: ”Jeremy Clarkson can go on TV and say ‘Take the strikers out and shoot them’, but nothing’s done about that.
”I don’t blame the sheriff I blame the system.”
During sentencing Sheriff Munro said two people had been sentenced to four years behind bars for using Facebook to incite riots in Northwich and Warrington, sentences which were both upheld by the appeal court.
She said she could not distinguish between those cases and the one she was dealing with.
She also rejected appeals by defence teams that the two accused were less culpable as neither had created the Facebook page, and because no rioting was taking place in Scotland.
Sheriff Munro said: ”The context in which a crime is committed is an essential feature in the assessment of culpability. In this case, the context hugely aggravated the seriousness of the crime.”
She added: ”The crime committed by each accused was not committed in isolation. It was committed when there was widespread lawlessness in cities and towns in England and each accused, in my view, intended to contribute to or aggravate that lawlessness by causing it to spread to Scotland and to Dundee in particular at a time when disorder in England was at its peak.”
Sheriff Munro added that the appeal court in England had pointed out that it had been a ”sinister feature of these cases that modern technology almost certainly assisted rioters”.
McGinley’s solicitor Paul Parker Smith told the court his client should not be sent to jail.
He urged Sheriff Munro not to put an ”emotional slant” on events and reminded her that the page was set up by another young person, who will be dealt with separately.
Mr Parker Smith said: ”Certainly now Mr McGinley realises how serious it is. He has taken the trouble of writing to your ladyship and wants to apologise to all the people he may have alarmed.”
Solicitor advocate James Laverty, for Divin, said: ”Despite his age, Mr Divin already has a string of convictions for offences including assault and last year was part of a mob of youths which attacked a bus travelling through Dundee with large stones.”
He said before his incarceration unemployed Divin was living with his grandparents.
Mr Laverty said: ”It was more a case of gross stupidity than any intention by Mr Divin to become involved in widescale disorder.”
Depute fiscal Lisa Welsh earlier told the court that the Facebook page encouraged people to ”kill some ******* dafties” and ”loot healthy shops”.
She said: ”It also suggested that people should bring guns and aim to ‘take some police ***** oot the game’.”
The site added: ”Let’s show them in England how it’s done.”
Miss Welsh said that, given other ”civil unrest”, Tayside Police had measures in place.
After a tip-off from a Glasgow radio station, they traced both accused and arrested them.
Photo Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire