Legal News
Foreign Looters from 44 Countries Joined August Civil Unrest (27 October 2011)
Date: 27/10/2011
It has been announced that looters came from 44 countries to join the civil unrests in August. Looters from Afghanistan, Cuba, Ethiopia, and Samoa helped shops to be plundered and set fire to businesses, leaving behind them millions of pounds worth of damage. The sheer number of foreign looters provides evidence to suggest that the riots were not associated with political protest or civil unrest but greed and opportunist criminality. Campaigners have urged the Government to deport foreign looters convicted of riot-related offences at the earliest opportunity.
Prison statistics have revealed that 14 per cent of all prisoners jailed for burglary, criminal damage, robbery, theft, and disorder during the civil unrest were born abroad. The true number could be greater still, as at least four per cent of individuals remanded in custody refused to inform police of their nationality. Jamaicans comprised the largest group of foreign inmates, closely followed by Somali and Polish nationals.
An insight into the prison population on September the 9th revealed that 153 foreign nationals and prisoners were of “unrecorded nationality” – representing 18 per cent of the 865 criminals imprisoned following the riots. Sir Andrew Green of the MigrationWatch pressure group has urged the Government to deport foreign rioters, claiming that it was “absolutely unacceptable” for any foreign citizen to partake in a riot in Britain. Criminals from outside of the EU are automatically put forth for deportation when sentenced to 12 months in prison.
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