<
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/jun/13/belfast-southampton-riots-racism-why-is-the-uk-burning>
"As the people of Glengormley, on the northern edge of Belfast, tidied up and
prepared for more violence in the midst of what has been described as a
modern-day pogrom, a court 500 miles away in Southampton, on the south coast of
England, started to deal with its own outbreak of thuggery.
The trigger for this week’s riots in the Northern Irish capital had been the
image of a black assailant who appeared to be stabbing and slashing his supine
white victim in the face and neck while shouting in Arabic. The suspect was
later revealed to be a refugee from Sudan.
In Southampton, the courts were dealing with the aftermath of separate violent
demonstrations. The prosecutor Siobhan Linsley told a hearing that 1,000 people
had massed outside the city’s central police station on 2 June.
They had gathered after the release of police bodycam footage showing the last
moments of Henry Nowak, a white 18-year-old student erroneously arrested and
handcuffed over false racism claims while dying from stab wounds inflicted on
him by Vickrum Digwa, a British Sikh. Digwa, 23, who had made the false racism
allegations, had just been jailed for murder.
A quarter of those who gathered outside the police station in Southampton over
the Nowak case appeared to be drinking alcohol, Linsley told the court, and
masks were worn. One speaker had shouted out: “Do you want the house, the Digwa
house?” the court heard. Hundreds of protesters then moved towards an incorrect
address for the Digwa family in the St Denys area.
Protesters threw bricks, chairs and bins at police. People streamed through
gardens and driveways. A trapped group of officers were “surrounded by a baying
mob throwing projectiles” and a police car was attacked. The disorder lasted
for about two and a half hours, with police “coming under almost constant
assaults”.
The demonstrators were said to have come from near and far and included members
of far-right groups calling themselves the Southampton Patriots, White Vanguard
and the Portsmouth branch of the National Rebirth Party.
The fancy names struck a somewhat pitiful note as the court dealt with a number
of those offering guilty pleas. Taylor Grundy, 22, who had pushed a commercial
bin on fire at officers and thrown a plank of wood, cried throughout the
hearing. He was sentenced to two and a half years. A second defendant, Dillon
Crawford, 29, a father of two with another child on the way, was given a
three-year jail sentence for throwing a bin and a metal chair at officers. He
told the court he had been “angry in the moment” and lost himself.
Crawford, 29, had 19 convictions for 33 offences including battery, robbery,
burglary and shoplifting. On one occasion, he had broken a partner’s front
teeth and punched her unconscious, after which he had bleached her hair, the
court heard.
Do these cases in Belfast and Southampton tell us anything about the United
Kingdom today?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
