A U.K. judge on Friday sentenced a man to 20 months in prison for urging his Facebook friends to target a hotel housing migrants.
Jordan Parlour, a 28-year-old from outside the English city of Leeds, posted on Facebook over the weekend that “every man and his dog should smash [the] f— out of Britannia hotel,” according to the BBC.
Guy Kearl, the judge who sentenced Parlour, said there were 210 people staying at the hotel, with many of them having asylum-seeking and refugee statuses. The 28-year-old’s post came between attacks on the hotel, when rioters broke windows, Kearl noted.
“I want to be absolutely clear, anyone involved in inciting this thuggish behavior will face severe consequences,” Nick Price, director of legal services at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said in a statement.
Parlour pled guilty to publishing threatening, insulting or abusive material to stir up racial hatred, according to Kearl. The proposed sentence was five years in prison, which Kearl reduced in exchange for Parlour’s plea.
“As is recognized on your behalf, this offense is so serious that an immediate custodial sentence is unavoidable,” the judge said.
The riots at the Brittania hotel came as claims spread online that the suspect who killed three people in northwest England last month was an immigrant. Demonstrations have taken place around the U.K., with some protesters setting cars on fire and confronting police.
Following Parlour’s sentencing, Tyler Kay, a 26-year-old from Northhampton, was booked on more than three years in prison for sharing an explcit post on X.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer ordered courts to expedite cases to deter other people from engaging in “far-right thuggery.”
“Kay wrote about setting fire to hotels and amplified posts advocating action against immigrations solicitors – this online behavior will not be tolerated,” Rosemary Ainslie, acting head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said.
“He was convicted only a day after he made the social media post, which displays just how quickly offenders such as Kay will be brought to justice,” Ainslie added.
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