TYLER Kay, 26, and Jordan Parlour, 28, were on Friday sentenced to 38 months and 20 months in prison, respectively, for stirring up racial hatred on social media.
Kay was convicted after using social media to call for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set alight. He posted on X calling for mass deportation and for people to set the said hotels on fire.
Jordan Parlour, 28, on the other hand, was jailed for 20 months after pleading guilty to inciting racial hatred with Facebook posts in which he advocated an attack on a hotel in Leeds as part of the violent public disorder that swept England last week.
They are the first people to be charged for posting criminal messages online linked to the recent far-right violence.
Parlour’s post said: “Every man and their dog should be smashing [the] fuck out [of] Britannia hotel.” More than 200 refugees and asylum seekers lived at the hotel. The initial post received six likes, but could be forwarded more widely owing to Parlour’s privacy settings.
Passing sentence on Friday, the judge, Guy Kearl KC, accepted Parlour took no part in the violence but said: “There can be no doubt you were inciting others to do so.
“You went on to say that you did not want your money going to immigrants who ‘rape our kids and get priority’,” Kearl said. “You were encouraging others to attack a hotel which you knew was occupied by refugees and asylum seekers.”
Nicholas Hammond, mitigating, told the judge Parlour was “not part of any sinister group activity designed to stir up violence” and was “not affiliated with any group”.
In a letter to the court, his mother said: “We can only speculate he’s been caught up and swept away by emotions circulating throughout the country.”
Tyler Kay, a company director, was sentenced at Northampton Crown Court. Kay was found guilty of repeating anti-immigrant comments originally posted by the wife of a Tory councillor and boasting online that he would “categorically” not be arrested. His posts also included calls for action against immigration solicitors in Northampton and support for organised protests.
Prosecuting counsel Matthew Donkin detailed the impact of their actions, noting that the Britannia Hotel staff reported stones being thrown and windows damaged between the 2nd and 3rd of August. The prosecutor also linked the incidents to a broader wave of public disorder that spread across several UK cities, including Southport, Manchester, Hartlepool, Aldershot, and London.
Parlour appeared to blow a raspberry as he was led from the court. Rosemary Ainslie, the acting head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s special crime and counter-terrorism division, said: “Let me be absolutely clear, people who think they can hide behind their keyboards and stir up racial hatred should think again.”
Kay used his own name and profile picture on his account, while advising others on “staying anon” and saying he had “watched enough CSI programmes” and would “categorically not be arrested”. He also tagged Northamptonshire police force in one of his posts.
Elsewhere, a woman who pushed a burning wheelie bin into a police line before falling to the ground and being arrested was jailed for 20 months. Stacey Vint, 34, was sentenced for her part in the riots in Middlesbrough town centre on Sunday.
Eighteen-Eleven Media