Judge talks of reading the riot act to rioter

A RIOTER who “brought shame” on an England flag and Sunderland was reprimanded for laughing as he was jailed.

- ROB KENNEDY

Stuart Polley was caught on camera participating in widespread disorder while wearing a pink shirt with a St George's flag draped over his shoulders.

A court heard he threw a piece of metal fencing towards a police van and broke up a wooden bench to produce further missiles.

As the wider facts of what happened in Sunderland city centre on August 2 last year were outlined by prosecutors, Polley was told off by Judge Amanda Rippon near the start of the hearing at Newcastle Crown Court for his reaction in the dock.

She told his barrister: “I’m going to give you a couple of minutes to read the riot act to your client, who's laughing and seems to think it’s funny.

“If I come back and he is anything other than a statue in the dock I will read him the riot act, and I use that term quite deliberately and any person in the public gallery who he is engaging with, I will remove.”