Description
This briefing paper analysed a sample of 126 cases that went through the courts from August 2024 to December 2025 with each case compiled via information gleaned from a variety of sources including national and local newspapers and, where publicly available, transcripts of judges sentencing remarks.
In line with IRR’s particular focus on the racial dimension of policing, prosecuting, charging, convicting and sentencing, the IRR sought to examine, first, whether the ‘riots’ were a break with or a reflection of mainstream talking points around race, religion and immigration and, second, the impact of the government narrative of ‘thuggery’ on prosecutorial and judicial decision-making.
Dr Jon Burnett sampled two cohorts of cases. 67 per cent of the sample involved people who were charged in relation to anti-migrant mobilisations. 33 per cent involved BME, mostly young Muslim defendants, who did not initiate the riots, but responded to them.
The study finds that:
- The riots gave rise to widespread fear in racialised communities.
- Though the riots were not solely caused by the far Right, they were exploited and manipulated by them.
- Some of the accused justified their actions by utilising variations of slogans used by successive governments such as ‘Stop the Boats’; others accused the government of aiding and abetting an ‘invasion’.
- The government has failed to take serious account of the causes and consequences of the riots, but, instead, linked the riots to violent disorder, ‘thuggery’ across the political spectrum.
- Far too often, the context within which defendants responded to racist provocation and racist violence was not sufficiently understood in the courtroom.
