Engineer jailed over Southport post freed after CPS mistake

Telegraph

9 hours ago

An engineer who posted on social media about burning asylum hotels during the Southport riots has been freed from jail after a mistake by prosecutors.
Joseph Haythorne was due to be sentenced on Tuesday for his comment calling for hotels to burn 'with those scruffy b------- in it'. He made the post just as violence erupted outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Rotherham.
On Monday, Sheffield Crown Court heard that the offence Mr Haythorne was charged with – publishing material intended to stir up racial hatred – requires permission from the Attorney General before charges can be brought, and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had not received permission in his case because of an 'oversight'.
The Recorder of Sheffield, Judge Jeremy Richardson, said any court proceedings up to now were 'a nullity' and quashed Mr Haythorne's conviction.
The 26-year-old, who had been remanded in custody on Friday ahead of his sentencing, was released from prison and told to appear at Sheffield magistrates' court on Wednesday for 'the whole process to start again'.
Judge Richardson told him: 'I am sorry about this. I am not best pleased; you have been detained, worse still, you were expecting to be sentenced tomorrow and I can't sentence you tomorrow. If on Wednesday consent has been obtained, the proceedings will be starting all over again.'
Specialist division
A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said: 'Charging decisions on offences relating to stirring up racial hatred should be referred to a specialist division which would then be responsible for applying to the Attorney General for consent if deemed appropriate.
'This should have been done in this case and we have apologised to the court ahead of inviting them to adjourn the case to allow for the issue to be resolved.'
On Friday, the court heard Mr Haythorne posted the comment on X, formerly Twitter, at lunchtime on Aug 4, 2024, just as an anti-immigration demonstration outside the Holiday Inn Express, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, began to descend into rioting.
More than 60 police officers were injured in the violence that afternoon as hundreds of people bombarded police and the hotel with missiles.
At one point, rioters set fire to a bin against a fire door of the hotel, which had 240 asylum seekers inside as well as more than 20 staff, and some broke into the building.
Laura Marshall, prosecuting, told Sheffield Crown Court on Friday that Mr Haythorne's post from an anonymised account, which was viewed by 1,100 people before he deleted it, included a link to a now-deleted post by the 'perhaps divisive figure' activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson.
'Lapse of judgment'
She said the defendant's full post read: 'Go on Rotherham. Burn any hotels with them scruffy b------- in it.'
Ms Marshall said the case had some similarities with the case of Lucy Connolly, who was jailed last year for 31 months after she posted on X: 'Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f------ hotels full of the b------- for all I care ... if that makes me racist so be it.'
Bianca Brasoveanu, defending, said Mr Haythorne posted the comment in a 'momentary lapse of judgment which he regrets every day'.