A teenager who threw lit fireworks at police officers during a “shameful” protest outside a hotel used to house asylum seekers has been sentenced to three years’ detention.
Jared Skeete, 19, snorted ketamine in front of the line of riot police as he shouted abuse at them during the disorder outside the Suites hotel in Knowsley on 10 February, Liverpool crown court heard on Monday.
He was “only there for the anarchy” and was not a member of a rightwing group, his lawyer, Peter White, said.
The violence, which happened during a protest over alleged incidents related to residents, was condemned by politicians at the time.
Sentencing Skeete, who pleaded guilty to violent disorder last month, Judge David Swinnerton said: “Those scenes of what you did bring shame on you. They were shameful for the city. That is not who we are.”
Martyn Walsh, prosecuting, said Skeete shouted to police: “Why are you protecting the scumbags, you big gang of dickheads?”
Skeete was also reported to have said to an officer: “What are you going to do, you silly little sausage? Go and do something better, lad, go and arrest them nonces.”
When arrested and interviewed, Skeete denied being the person shown in the footage but then asked if he could have a copy of it for himself, describing it as “like a movie” and “brutal”, the court heard.
Walsh said £83,684-worth of damage was caused to five police vehicles during the attack, which left one police officer with post-concussion syndrome and another with bruising and swelling to the arm and foot.
White, defending, said Skeete had been socialising with friends on 10 February when he been made aware of social media rumours that incorrectly accused a resident of the hotel of a serious offence.
He said: “He is a young man, aged 19, who allowed himself to be caught up in mob mentality and used this as an opportunity to act in a thoroughly unacceptable manner.”
