Army veteran jailed for role in 'far-right' protest

AN ARMY veteran who was part of a mob who attacked a lone black man on Piccadilly Gardens when rival protests erupted into violence has been jailed.

- JOHN SCHEERHOUT

A judge said it was a ‘genuine tragedy’ that father-of-two Colin Brown, from Northern Moor, who has been left with PTSD after being shot during a tour of Afghanistan, had ended up behind bars.

The defendant took part in what was described in court as a ‘far-right’ protest which gathered in Piccadilly Gardens on August 3 but it clashed with a group of pro-Palestine counter demonstrators, prosecutor Philip Hall told Manchester Crown Court.

Footage gathered by the subsequent police investigation showed a lone black male being attacked by a group of white men. Brown was part of the group although he ‘does not make physical contact’ with the black male during the confrontation, said Mr Hall.

Later he was captured involved in a verbal confrontation with a woman of Syrian heritage in which he described the British government as ‘scumbags’, the court heard.