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It’s not just the far right they’re punishing for the xenophobic, racist, extremist violence on Bristol’s streets

The local news cycle is peppered with brief reports on those jailed for their involvement in the 3 August far-right violent disorder in the city centre. But here’s what’s really going on…

gavel hovering over two people holding a sign that says "refugees welcome"
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Abdinasir Hussein has been estranged from his family. As a result, he lost his place at university because he couldn’t fund his studies on his own, lost his job as a security guard as he couldn’t afford the course needed to renew his certificate for the work, and without an income he lost his home too because he couldn’t pay the rent.

The 24-year-old had been sofa surfing while trying to find his feet again. But any progress he might have made was put abruptly on hold after he found himself in the dock at Bristol Magistrates Court, facing a charge of violent disorder for his involvement in clashes between far-right extremists and counter protesters on 3 August.

Abdinasir joined counter demonstrators who linked arms in front of a Redcliffe hotel housing asylum seekers, defending it from a smaller but violent group of anti-immigrant extremists. He threw two “missiles” in the direction of the far right, but they didn’t hit anybody, and this is the only evidence the prosecution had against him.

He pleaded guilty and was held in custody for nine days while waiting to be sentenced at the city’s crown court. When he arrived there, the judge, studying the evidence, seemed confused by the fact Abdinasir’s case had landed in his courtroom, saying the young man was clearly “reacting to behaviour that at best could be described as goading and provocative.” 

But that didn’t stop him from sending Abdinasir back to custody, where he will be held for a month while a pre-sentencing report, a document that’s designed to assist judges in deciding the appropriate sentence for a vulnerable person, is prepared for him. In other words, it’s Abdinasir’s insecure living situation, his age, and his clean criminal record that’s keeping him behind bars until at least his next hearing.

Avon and Somerset Police have so far arrested 52 people in connection to the far-right violence that gripped Bristol city centre on 3 August. A total of 43 of them have been charged, and of those, 25 have been sentenced. But while it’s mostly those on the far-right side of the divide in the dock, Abdinasir isn’t the only one being punished for taking a stand against them. 

Standing against the far right

Jivara Omar, 30, was in Castle Park during clashes that took place before the violence moved toward the Redcliffe hotel. In footage that has been widely shared online, a Black man is singled out and attacked by a group of far-right extremists, and Jivara steps in to support him before police break them up.

He and the man he was trying to defend were pinned to the ground by police and arrested on suspicion of affray, as counter-demonstrators tried to explain to officers that they were acting in self defence. One of those who attacked them was also detained, but the rest got away, at least for a while, and were later seen targeting the hotel.

Jivara was released on bail but almost two months later, police confirmed was being charged, not with affray but with the more serious offence of violent disorder. Police say the man he was defending, who is 20 years old, has not been charged but remains on bail as their enquiries continue.

Violent disorder is the second most serious public order offence, carrying a maximum prison sentence of five years. 

A mounted police officer palms a far-right extremist in the face on Bristol Bridge on 3 August

Stoking the flames

The time Abdinasir spends in custody will be knocked off his custodial sentence if he is given one because, in reality, his punishment has already begun. This is also the case for the far-right extremists who played a central role in the violence but pleaded guilty to their charges.

Take the case of Shane Dennis, whose four-week jail term was reduced to a matter of days due to his guilty plea, the application of new government early-release measures, and acknowledgement of the time he spent behind bars waiting for his sentencing hearing.

The early-release measures mean some offenders only spend 40% of their prison terms before being released. They were enacted to help ease overcrowding in jails and as the courts are kept open on weekends to deal with a backlog of cases exacerbated by the large number of far-right rioters charged following the extremist violence on the UK’s streets this summer.

Shane’s case was something of an outlier, as he was charged not with violent disorder like the majority of those in court, but instead with inciting racially or religiously aggravated hatred. Basically, he wasn’t physically violent but the vile language he used was found likely to have encouraged the hate-fuelled violence that was happening around him. 

“You should be protecting our fucking kids and not them,” Shane can be heard shouting at officers in Castle Park, over chants from others of ‘We want our country back’, in police body-worn camera footage played to his sentencing hearing in September. “You let all the foreign cunts in here… You’re letting them kill our fucking kids.”

His words were, most likely, a reference to misinformation that had been spreading before the far-right, anti-immigrant, extremist violence swept the streets of the UK: that the murder of three young girls in Southport was carried out by an asylum seeker. It was a lie that, like Shane’s actions might have, but on a much larger scale, stoked this hate-fuelled violence.

At his sentencing hearing, the prosecutor spared the judge a re-reading of the impact statement provided by the police that was read aloud in the first of the many cases that landed in Bristol’s crown court. The statement spelled out clearly just how damaging the actions of those who brought violence to the city’s streets were. 

“Overwhelmingly, I have been told how people from Black and minoritised backgrounds have been [living] in fear and terror following the outpouring of racism and Islamophobia they have seen and experienced in Bristol in the lead up to, during and following the recent disorder,” the statement, signed by Avon and Somerset Police chief inspector Vicks Hayward-Melen, read.

“Members of our Muslim communities in Bristol have expressed how they feel the specific nature and threat towards their community is unprecedented. They feel that just because the violent disorder has subsided, fears that people think this way about Muslim communities means that they continue to look over their shoulder, being careful about not being ‘openly’ Muslim in public to avoid being targeted.”

It concluded with the chief inspector recounting how an unnamed community leader was grateful for how the police and prosecutors have responded to the violence. “Communities are seeing the justice system deal with criminal matters very swiftly and the high sentences are felt to be a good deterrent in helping prevent further chaos that has marred our country as a whole,” the chief inspector quoted them as saying.

That might be true, but something a community impact statement from a police force would never highlight, even if they were told it by the same unnamed community leader, is the shortcomings of the criminal justice system in ensuring offenders are rehabilitated and, after their time is spent, return to society less likely to re-offend.

A crowd of counter protesters by Castle Park, with one holding up a placard saying 'Fuck off fascists'
Counter-demonstrators outnumbered the far right in Bristol on 3 August

Entrenching inequality

Take the case of Mark Bowen, who was among the first three people to be sentenced for their involvement. He was captured on police body-worn camera footage shouting abuse at police on Bristol Bridge, where the far right clashed with officers following the initial outbreak of violence in Castle Park.

“You were swearing and you were being highly abusive to the police… You said to them ‘You horrible cunts, I hope it’s your fucking kids next mate’… You became part of the angry mob,” the judge said, convicting Mark of violent disorder and sentencing him to 25 months in prison. His sentence was more severe than others, like Shane, who did not use physical violence. As was his charge.

Mark, 40, has been homeless on and off for about seven years, and has been battling a drug addiction during that time. He was living in a tent in the Old Market area when the violence in Castle Park broke out, and, according to his defence lawyer, had no idea why it was happening – he assumed it was some kind of football celebration – because he doesn’t have social media.

Whether he stumbled across it and got involved because he was a “drunk idiot… angry with the world”, as he explained to the court, is just one thing the judge considered. But what wasn’t is the impact a jail term would have on him as a vulnerable person, whose conviction means he will likely be removed from the council’s social housing waiting list.

Councils can decide who qualifies for their housing waiting lists, and can disqualify people if they are convicted of a crime.

Research shows prison terms affect people’s chances of finding employment and housing after their release, and the likelihood they will reoffend is increased. It’s a well known fact, too, that if you’re experiencing poverty, you’re more likely to commit crime and there are laws that criminalise homelessness, for example, do nothing but entrench this reality.

The organised far right uses migrants and people of colour as the scapegoat for societal problems linked to poverty, like the rising cost of living, a lack of affordable, good quality homes and unemployment. They seek to divide the working class along racial and religious lines, instead of pointing the finger at the ruling class that serves to increase and further entrench inequality.

The criminal justice system plays its part as well. Black and Asian people, for instance, who are disproportionately affected by poverty in the UK, are also over-represented in the justice system, research shows, due to discrimination, racial bias and cultural differences. 

So just like we shouldn’t ignore online misinformation’s role in fuelling the racist hatred on our streets, we can’t overlook the role the justice system has in disproportionately punishing those most vulnerable in our society.

Justice will be served

When it comes to public order, what charges the crown prosecution service (CPS) decide to bring against those who get involved is also worth considering.

Some of the violence on 3 August could, according to the CPS’s own definition, easily be described as amounting to riot, but it has so far decided not to make use of the riot charge and as they did against the city’s Kill the Bill protesters in 2021. The charge, which is the most serious public order offence, has been used in response to some the far-right disorder elsewhere – but sparingly.

The three men, including Mark, who were sentenced first as part of the police operation into the far-right disorder in Bristol, received a combined total of seven years in prison. Ashley Harris, who attacked the man who Jivara tried to defend in Castle Park, punched a woman in the face and was at the forefront of the far-right’s targeting of the hotel housing asylum seekers, was jailed for three years.

The first to be found guilty of riot after the Kill the Bill demonstrations in the city, Ryan Roberts, is serving a 14-year term after being convicted of riot, arson and attempted arson. At trial he maintained that his actions were in self-defence, reacting to brutal force used by riot police and was there to protest the government’s attempts to curb people’s right to demonstrate.

The key difference between his actions and those who played a central role in the far-right violence in the city in August, though, is who the violence was directed towards: On 3 August in Bristol, and elsewhere during the summer, the far right’s target was some of the most vulnerable people in society – and the criminal justice system is criminalising those who tried to defend them.

Abdinasir will learn his fate at Bristol Crown Court on 22 October. If his initial hearing is anything to go by, the public gallery will be empty, the sentence will pass without protest and be undocumented by the police and the press but for a short report that states his name, age and the offence he’s been convicted with.

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