Manchester police say sorry over tweet on woman who accepted looted clothes
Police post apology after criticism for 'celebrating' five-month jail term for mum of two who slept through riots but took clothes
·
Shoppers walk past a Greater Manchester police advert displaying images of people suspected of committing crimes during the riots. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters
Greater Manchester Police have apologised after appearing to celebrate a five-month jail sentence handed down to a mother-of-two for taking a pair of shorts looted during the disorder in Manchester.
Ursula Nevin, who slept through the riots, took the shorts from a £629 haul of clothing and accessories stolen from the Vans store in the city centre by her housemate Gemma Corbett.
Nevin was arrested for handling stolen goods after police raided the flat in Stretford. She was jailed for five months after pleading guilty at Manchester magistrates' court.
Following her conviction, Greater Manchester Police posted this message on their official Twitter account: "Mum-of-two, not involved in disorder, jailed for FIVE months for accepting shorts looted from shop. There are no excuses!"
Poster HeardinLondon was among those who criticised the force: "@gmpolice Your celebratory sentencing tweets are promoting hatred, divison & putting your officers in more danger. Think before you type."
The police force later deleted the tweet, posting this apology on the social networking site: "Apologies for any offence caused from last tweet. Comment was not directed at individual person. Thanks to all for feedback messages – all your comments have been noted. You are right, it is not our place to comment on sentences."
The court heard how Corbett, a call centre worker, had gone into the city centre after watching the riots unfold on TV. She then helped herself to stock from the ransacked Vans shop in the Northern Quarter.
Corbett, 24, who admitted theft was remanded in custody and will be sentenced at Manchester crown court.
The judge told Nevin, also 24, that she was supposed to be a role model to her children, aged one and five. Khalid Qureshi, sentencing, said: "The first reaction you would expect some to have is 'get that stuff out of my house, I have two children that I'm responsible for'.
"You would expect decent people to speak up and say 'no, this is wrong, get that out of my house'. You are a role model to your sons, yet you decided to have a look at the goods and keep some for yourself."
More news
See also
England riots: day four aftermath – Wednesday 10 August 2011
UK riots coverage – Wednesday 10 August 2011
UK riots: London in lockdown, but violence flares across UK
Emergency reserve of riot police on standby
Expat? Get Early Access to UK Personal or Occupational Pension
www.WindsorPensions.com
Discover more about Expat Life and Talk to the Experts at HSBC Today
Offshore.HSBC.com/Expat-Experts
Access your UK Pension 100% Lump sum Tax Free Now
www.amass-spain.com
Post a comment
 Staff  Contributor
13 August 2011 4:50PM
This coment was posted on The Telegraph page:
If you get 6 months for stealing a bottle of water from Sainsbury's, how much do you get for stealing £1.3 trillion from the taxpayer?
Answers on the back of a copy of Lloyds, RBS or Northern Rock's annual reports.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:16PM
A single-mother-of-two was jailed for 5 months today after she declined to do the legal thing and accepted a pair of stolen shorts from her house mate.
Bring back the death sentence, I say!
Are there any Guardian journalists who can tell us who will be looking after her children, with a combined age of six years, during this period?
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:17PM
What do you get if you are a policeman taking bribes from Murdoch? Or if you are an MP studiously fiddling your expenses, or failing to declare interests or donations?
The rioters were not justified in what they did, but listening to the MPs denounce them in such intemperate language was truly sickening.
The Tory Junta will use this as a reason to rush in intemperate, illiberal laws to stifle all dissent, instead of actually trying to work out what went wrong with society (whose existence their guru Thatcher denied absolutely!) .
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:20PM
Seriously? 5 months for a pair of shorts? Who the hell is going to look after her kids? They did nothing wrong at all.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:25PM
I don't know whether to be more appalled at the actions of the rioters or the incredibly punitive sentences we are seeing handed down. We will now pay for this woman's incarceration, for her children to be cared for in the meantime and most probably, in the future, for the support they are going to need after having their family ripped apart - which leaves them less likely to contribute in any meaningful way to society. Who does this help?
Denying bail for those who intend to appeal wouldn't be a cynical ploy to ensure that they spend their time locked up before the appeal courts strike down these unjustifiable sentences would it?...
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:34PM
This is revenge, 'pure and simple'. We are teaching our children that revenge is good.
That's around £20,000 to keep this woman in prison for a very minor offence. It's sheer fiscal madness. The legal bill is likely to run into many millions in order to satisfy the Tory revenge tactics, tactics used to appease the voting public who themselves want revenge.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:34PM
Totally agree with Poster HeardinLondon, the police are not the law. Under no circumstances they should comment on sentences, that's not part of their job.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:38PM
Nice of them to apologise and all that - but here's what I really want to know: will GM police be examining the attitudes and feelings that underlie the tweeting? I absolutely accept that police have been and continue to be under a lot of pressure, have low morale, and may feel caught between a rock and a hard place a lot of the time right now.
However if they don't reflect on what underlies that kind of sentiment, get people properly debriefed, provide better training and support - which costs money - and be up front in tackling such attitudes and feelings, the negative perception they currently enjoy will be reinforced, and the kind of unacceptable behaviour we have seen on occassion ( and which may have sparked this whole sorry episode off) will continue.
I seriously hope deleting and apolgising is the very least they are doing.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:38PM
A couple of months back Ken Clarke wanted to release rapists after serving as little as 24 months in prison.
Now the courts are jailing people for 6 months for stealing bottles of water or receiving a pair of shorts.
Oh and Ken said again the other day that our prisons are full ?
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:38PM
Once all the hysteria dies down the lawyers are going to make a fortune on the appeals.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:44PM
It's been a good week for lawyers and shopfitters
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:46PM
Credit to Greater Manchester Police for their candid tweet apology.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:48PM
I trust her solicitor lodged an immediate appeal to to Crown Court for this to be looked at by an intelligent judge and not left too the caveman in the Magistrates'
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:48PM
samcam
13 August 2011 5:25PM
I don't know whether to be more appalled at the actions of the rioters or the incredibly punitive sentences we are seeing handed down.
I thought I'd seen it go as low as it could go yesterday with six months for a 3.50 pack of lidl water and a young woman getting six months for 10 packets of chewing gum.
What is going on???
This is outrageous ... yes full sentences for arson / physical violence / organised looting .... but "handling stolen goods" my backside
and what happens to the children? and who will bear the brunt of the pyschological damage done to a 1yo who looses contact with it's sole parent for 10 weeks? Oh I forgot ... according to the magistrate it will learn the lesson that you can't have your housemates going out to commit crime
Surely there must be a case for appeals here with the backing of the likes of Mansfield / Liberty
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:50PM
MindYerBeak 13 August 2011 5:34PM This is revenge, 'pure and simple'. We are teaching our children that revenge is good.
In times gone by we taught them greed was good. Now it seems greed is only good if your already loaded.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:54PM
First the kids went mad and rioted, now the establishment has gone bonkers.
Some perspective please?
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:55PM
If...
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Grotesque......................................... While the Bankers are rewarded by our politicians and judiciary for bringing countries to their knees?
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 5:57PM
Sorry cavemen everywhere.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:02PM
Some of the rioting was shocking with scenes of unbridled stupidity and sheer nastiness
Some of the punishments now being meted out are shocking with stories of unbridled stupidity and sheer nastiness
this weekend is proving no more edifying and optimistic for our future than the last
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:06PM
Maybe a good old-fashioned gibbet at the crossroads would be a deterrent to criminals.
Blair could test it.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:09PM
The judge told Nevin, also 24, that she was supposed to be a role model to her children, aged one and five. Khalid Qureshi, sentencing, said: "The first reaction you would expect some to have is 'get that stuff out of my house, I have two children that I'm responsible for'
you would also have thought that MPs gleefully accepting expensive freebies might have considered that they were responsible for the appropriate use of their constituents' tax contributions .
When they were found out ,they paid their ill gotten gains back .
Did this young woman get a chance to pay for the shorts ...or even just return them .
These all night sittings to dish out retribution are beginning to exhibit a facet of our society which is no more palatable to guinely concerned folk than the riots which engendered them
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:10PM
Lets hope she is not a social housing tenant too :(
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:10PM
genuinely concerned folk
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:10PM
Interesting that Cameron's first speech upon returning from holiday was scattered with words like 'punishment' and phrass such as 'no excuses', but no talk of justice. He set the tone for the courts to follow.
There's a distressing lack of joined-up thinking here: making entire families homeless in revenge for one member of said family being caught up in the rioting. Surely the courts are responsible for handing down sentences, not Tory councils? And what happens to the homeless family? It's no good simply saying 'well, they deserved it, tough luck'. Fast forward six months and said families will be homeless still, begging on the streets or robbing grocers for food. Utter insanity.
The government is advocating making it's own citizens homeless. Unprecedented and inexcusable.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:11PM
For all those people saying this women should somehow be excused from punishment because she has children, have you considered that maybe, just maybe, her children deserve better and would be better off without her?
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:13PM
Harsh justice should be served to those who burn, loot and attack police and citizens, but I feel sentences of this type for someone who was not even there when riots going on are too severe. This is a sentence on the Children too. Sippenhaft
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:14PM
from over here, it doesn't so much look like england is broken or sick, just terribly, terribly lost.
for what it's worth, your stock has rocketed in argentina. before everyone here thought the english were a bunch of cold fish who drank tea at 5 and couldn't play football (fish having no feet, after all). now they see they are so very much more than that.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:15PM
I agree that such comments are unwise. But if people had thrown bricks at me I might have said and written a lot worse.
Let's not lose focus here. The bad people are the ones throwing the bricks and stealing and setting fire to things. Don't get distracted with minor twaddle.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:20PM
Having lost faith in our politicians, financial institutions, and police, I have now lost all faith in the judiciary.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:21PM
MozP
13 August 2011 6:11PM
For all those people saying this women should somehow be excused from punishment because she has children, have you considered that maybe, just maybe, her children deserve better and would be better off without her?
what next? forced sterilisation for the unemployed / those with a criminal record / illegal immigrants and the forced removal of their children?
The last time I looked I was under the impression we lived in a liberal democracy with checks and balances on those in authority
In case it escaped your notice the woman wasn't rioting but at home asleep in her home with her children.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:29PM
lovejoype9
13 August 2011 6:21PM
what next? forced sterilisation for the unemployed / those with a criminal record / illegal immigrants and the forced removal of their children?
Sadly those comments were made last night over on Polly Toynbees thread.
The lack of ability to think things through is not restricted to the young as is so amply demonstrated on this site day after day.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:33PM
Well Cameron's stupid rhetoric about sick society should have been aimed at the police and judiciary and himself.
There will be more riots and these idiots will be the people we should blame.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:34PM
And thus we continue the slow inexorable slide towards fascism...
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:37PM
parrotkeeper
13 August 2011 6:29PM
lovejoype9
13 August 2011 6:21PM
what next? forced sterilisation for the unemployed / those with a criminal record / illegal immigrants and the forced removal of their children?
Sadly those comments were made last night over on Polly Toynbees thread.
The lack of ability to think things through is not restricted to the young as is so amply demonstrated on this site day after day.
No this is mob rule carried out by the establishment and the Bullingdon Boys.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:38PM
Khalid Qureshi, sentencing, said: "The first reaction you would expect some to have is 'get that stuff out of my house, I have two children that I'm responsible for'.
There seems to be a reality gap here. The first reaction that a (presumably) poor mother would have on finding free clothes (she did not steal them) would be - ta. Saves her money that she can spend on her young kids. I am disgusted by the rioting and looting, but this woman did not contribute to it at all.
This is beginning to smack of collective punishment, which will only create yet more resentment. Deal harshly with the criminals, not the incidental, harmless, peripheral opportunists.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:40PM
MozP
The sickest person in Britain is you. Your stupidity is breathtaking.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:41PM
I watched the rioting on TV.
Will I get 3 months?
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:44PM
The cost to the sztate is out of all proportion to the offence. The Babylonians had a much better idea - '
' The commonest of all penalties was a fine. This is awarded by the Code (of Hammurabi)..........; for damages done to property, for breach of contract. The restoration of goods appropriated, illegally bought or damaged by neglect, was usually accompanied by a fine, giving it the form of multiple restoration. This might be double, treble, fourfold, fivefold, sixfold, tenfold, twelvefold, even thirtyfold, according to the enormity of the offence'
Cuts out the prison nonsense, materially punishes the offender and gives the victim cash.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:46PM
Police said "There are no excuses" then went on to make lots as to why they were commenting as they did! ]
BTW...isnt removing a Tweet withdrawing of evidence.....which is illegal!?
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:51PM
EricJones : I agree that such comments are unwise. But if people had thrown bricks at me I might have said and written a lot worse.
Let's not lose focus here. The bad people are the ones throwing the bricks and stealing and setting fire to things. Don't get distracted with minor twaddle
Convictions for those who committed arson and orchestrated the violence certainly also there has to be some penalty for profiteering from the loot but Nevin's sentence in accepting a pair of shorts is totally disproportionate.
For the sake of clarity EricJones, you're not in anyway dismissing: "Mum-of-two, not involved in disorder, jailed for FIVE months for accepting shorts looted from shop. There are no excuses!" as minor twaddle ----- are you?
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 6:53PM
A shoplifter without previous convictions is usually given a caution. What’s the difference in this case? The sentence seems to have little to do with justice; rather more to do with gleeful revenge by police and politicians for the humiliation they suffered during the riots. In their blood lust for revenge, the police and politicians are merely building-up more trouble for the future. God help us all.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 7:00PM
Absolutely proportionate sentence. Lets recommence hanging peasants for poaching a brace of the Baron's hares too.
All of a sudden we're partying like its 1399.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 7:01PM
A Police raid on this womans flat, for a pair of shorts? Lets hope to God they were all well armed before approaching this violent individual
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 7:02PM
The bad people are the ones who looted, burgled, mugged, robbed, stole, bought or accepted stolen goods, burned and trashed lives and livelihoods and killed totally innocent people.
There are no excuses. Nobody owes them an explanation or apology. They require punishment and the withdrawal of their benefits. Then they can go about earning them back but only after they have proven that they can show respect, honour and self-discipline. They do not deserve social housing, the people who have had their properties incinerated do. There are no grey areas, only grey thinking.
If I lived in your house and stole from you, mugged your mother and father, burned your house down and looted your business, you'd do what precisely? Apply pseudo-sociological undergrad theoretical doctrines of understanding, while considering my socio-economic background and ethnic origins? Invite me back?
Yes this also applies to anyone who has defrauded this country of anything too.
What's 'sick' about England is how lenient we are; it's almost encouraging to know that it's possible to rack up a string of convictions and still maintain a lifestyle which so many people can only dream of.
·
[Clip]
13 August 2011 7:09PM Without prejudice to American consultant Bill Bratton, or for that matter even British Police, I would pen that an appointment of an external person and that too at such a sensitive posting in Police on one hand is nothing but an open admission of under estimating UK, which once led the whole world from east to west and from south to north, and on the other hand it proves that now same UK terribly lacks in tapping one of its national to handle local security and safety crisis. Will the nation accept it alike, I very seriously
|