Harsh sentences handed out to anyone involved in this summer’s riots were upheld by the Court of Appeal yesterday. Rejecting all but three of 10 appeals considered, they stressed that punishments given to offenders by the courts should be ‘designed to deter others from similar criminal activity’.

You can read the full judgment here.

The two young men attempted to use social media site Facebook to stir up trouble lost their appeals against four year sentences. Lawyers for Jordan Blackshaw, 21 years old, of Northwich, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, of Warrington, said what their clients had done was ‘monumentally foolish’. ‘What both these appellants intended was to cause very serious crime, in the case of Blackshaw, rioting burglary or criminal damage, each in the context of serious public disorder, and in relation to Sutcliff, rioting, in the context of serious public disorder,’ said Lord Judge. ‘All this was incited at a time of sustained countrywide mayhem…. These offenders were caught red-handed. For the citizens of Northwich and Warrington that was just as well, because as we have explained, and the guilty pleas acknowledged, neither offender was joking when the Facebook entry was set up.’