They are NOT protests, they are riots and terrorist attacks

I'm most impressed by the fast sentencing. I've never heard of 1 week turn around in our absurd judicial system. Bravo.

My recollection is that they were shorter lived and contained to one area in 2011 but I my memory isn’t great. I also think the co text now is scarier.

They affected fewer areas but that didn't make them any less terrifying for those who lived in the affected areas. However, they weren't targeted at any particular demographic so i can see that the current riots are more frightening for some people than others.

Ultimately I think that some violent men seek an outlet for their violence. Now is scary, 2011 was scary, Toxteth riots were scary, football thugs in the 80s were scary, etc. I don't think it is unreasonable to be scared but I do think it is unreasonable to assume that the current wave of thugs are significantly worse than the last few times this happened.

I went into our local city today to have my hair cut. The streets were quiet which was odd, and by 5pm the staff in the hairdressers were turning the later booked appointments away and getting the hair team to finish up - I was sent out with roughly dried hair! The roads out were much busier than usual for a summer holiday week - and honestly it was quite unnerving. There's also problems in the next town where we have our business premises and I've hardly taken my eye off the CCTV covering the front area.

They deserve every one of those years as well!

That wasn't even a point you made that I was picking you up on.

Your points I picked up on don't themselves stand. It's a False Equivalence from you. 👍

And, of course, they were riots. BBC often take use neutral language in their headlines which changes as more information comes in. Sometimes their headline changes still don't reflect what really happened, sometimes it does.

But that's how the BBC has worked for years.

I think you'll find I'm not minimising these riots and you'll also find I'm pointing out you started off with doing exactly that yourself.

Every time you attempt to minimise JSO 5 conviction, I've drawn your attention to the Judge's Sentencing Remarks. Especially the part where the JSO convicts concerned were actually the LEADERS themselves engaged in conspiracy.

That carries a heavier sentence.

You have to first understand why JSO 5 got the sentences they did before you can begin to comment on whatever sentences will be handed down to any person convicted of their own respective charges on relation to the recent riots.

Again, don't draw a false equivalence with JSO or minimise their crimes because of your own lack of legal understanding of whatever sentences are handed down to rioters.

One was a group of leaders caught conspiring and the one was a group of involved rioters rather than any identified leader orchestrating the riots.

I think it's pretty clear I don't support anyone rioting as being from Northern Ireland I know what happens during them. And I also avoid riots - sensible security advice. 👍

In other words, stop making assumptions implied in your questions.

If you want to focus on and condemn the riots, crack on.

But if what you really want to do is to minimise JSO 5 convictions, then don't bother to try that angle. Especially as they were lucky not to get 10 years for their plan.

Try to think more clearly about what it is you want to say.

Clearly you don't remember 2011. I do as I was living close to the area and my employer said anyone who wanted to leave early to get home safe could do so. I did that because it was genuinely scary. My mum (in her 60s) remembers earlier periods of rioting too.

Doesn't make what the current thugs are doing okay though, and obviously they should be in prison.

As an aside about just stop oil - they were repeat offenders with a high likelihood of doing the same thing again. Those factors are always going to increase the sentence a person receives. And preventing people getting to their chemo appointment is not much better than punching someone on the face.

I live in a very residential area with a pub , Tesco and pharmacy just round the corner. We've got riot police at the top of our road as we speak and security guards at the door of little Tesco , the poor staff working there are terrified. There's also more men than I've ever seen before sitting outside the pub . Protesters my foot.

Correct - there is NO equivalence between these riots and JSO.

But not in the way you think.

See, the people arrested were not conspiring to riot which is why they haven't been charged with conspiracy. If there was any group of leaders behind it, then they were nowhere near these riots. The ones arrested were used by such people.

But JSO 5, on the other hand, WERE the leaders who planned a disruption so large the Judge made clear it was a threat to the maintenance of law and order.

More to the point, JSO 5 were caught live on Zoom video chat by a journalist who then informed the police. Without that key piece of evidence, JSO 5 would have had a much lighter sentence.

You don't need to minimise JSO's leaders' crime in order to make an argument about the riots. That's exactly what you've been doing rather unapologetically which is blatantly wrong.

These are two different cases with different levels of evidence involved. If you wanted to focus on the riots, you should have done that and left JSO out of it without trying to minimise their conspiracy charges and convictions.

Absolutely.
I am fucking sick of people legitimising this shit by calling them protests.

Smashing windows, setting fire to things and trying to kill people are not protests in my opinion and frankly I think it's time the police or army comes in with rubber bullets because this is fucking terrifying.

I heard raised voices in the street earlier today and I shit myself thinking people were coming for my husband and sons. They haven't left the house in days and I am sick of reading minimising, racist-excusing bullshit.

I wish we had the luxury of thinking this is not that big a deal and it'll all blow over.

It’s rent-a-mob, not terrorism. 🙄

I've seen the message listing the targets and it's chilling. I keep thinking of the people who work there. I assume their offices are closed today but it must still be scary to be see your place of work to be targeted like this. Or your specific area.

It's not a protest. It's meant to terrorise people and i would say they are succeeding. I and the kids have stayed at home today because we we are too scared to go out and so have all my other friends who are not white. I even closed all the blinds as you can clearly look into our house through the windows and I didn't want random people walking past our house seeing that Asians live in this house. This is not how I want to live or how I want my children to live. :-(

They are just rent-a-mob and violent thugs. We’ve had them before, with various riots, and we will, no doubt, have them again.

It’s about robbing, looting and vandalism - as happened in the so called “London riots” in 2011.🙄