Teenager jailed after starting Facebook page encouraging people to riot

Dundee Sheriff Court: Liam Allan was sentenced to a year and seven months detention.

A teenager has been detained for a year and seven months after starting a Facebook page encouraging people to riot in a Scots city centre during last year's summer disturbances in England.

Liam Allan took to the social network site and invited friends to riot in Dundee.

He became the first person in Scotland to be arrested for trying to incite riots using Facebook after he posted the page on August 9 last year.

Allan started the event on the social networking site titled City Centre Riot at the height of the violence and looting that swept cities across England in August last year.

Rioting gripped areas of London and the city centres of Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham, Gloucester and other towns during the month of August.

Days after it started Allan took to Facebook starting the page encouraging a riot in Dundee and inviting hundreds of friends to take part.

On it he encouraged people to: "get suited and booted, crowbars, baseball bats, the lot...show the English tw**s that we are better rioters than them tea sippers."

Fiscal depute Donna Davidson told Dundee Sheriff Court that police had set up a "major incident room" after being alerted to the page.

She said: "The situation is that on August 4 last year the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan took place in London. As a result large scale riots engulfed the city. The riots spread to other cities in England, meaning resources were stretched and communities torn apart.

"On August 9 Tayside Police received a telephone call reporting someone had observed the Facebook page entitled City Centre Riot. As a result a major incident room was set up to respond to the threat of rioting in Dundee.

“At 7.30pm that night police officers traced the accused at home. He was detained and said 'it was a joke'. He was taken to police HQ and interviewed and said it was not meant to be taken literally."

Allan, 19, of Benvie Gardens, Dundee, pleaded guilty on indictment to a charge of breaching the peace on August 9 last year.

Defence solicitor Doug McConnell said Allan had no previous convictions and argued that his case is different to that of two other Dundee teens, Jordan McGinley and Shawn Divin, who were jailed last year over similar Facebook pages.

Both received prison terms after admitting starting a page called "riot in the toon" around a week after Allan's page was found. Last month they had those jail terms cut to 27 months for McGinley and 29 months for Divin after appealing their sentences.

Mr McConnell said: "He should have known better but there was nothing to tell him don't do this this is wrong. His thought was that this wasn't a crime and he didn't realise what he was doing was a crime. He accepts now it was stupid and criminal."

Sheriff George Way told Allan he had pled guilty to a "grave offence" and that a custodial sentence was the only option.

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