Jailed: Wigan father and son who threw bricks at police during Southport riot
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Graphic footage showing bricklayer Benjamin Gibson and his father Shannon Gibson, a granddad of nine, taking part in the mass disturbance in the town on July 30 was played to Liverpool Crown Court showing their active involvement.
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Hide AdThe men claimed to have travelled to Southport to take part in the vigil for Bebe King, six years old; Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, who died after an attacker entered a dance studio in Hart Street.
But they said they then got carried away and became involved in the 1,000-strong mob which gathered on St Luke's Road and Sussex Road shouting racist chants and attacking a line of Merseyside Police officers deployed to protect a mosque.
Louise McCloskey, prosecuting, said that during the violence at least 50 prison officers were injured and she described Benjamin Gibson, who was captured on CCTV throwing 16 bricks towards police officers, as “appearing crazed” at one point.
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Hide AdHis 58-year-old father, who was seen with his arms raised chanting, ‘Allah, Allah, who the **** is Allah’, threw a total of six bricks towards the police cordon.
Benjamin Gibson, of Almond Brook Road, Standish, who has no previous convictions, was jailed for 32 months and his father, of Beech Hill Avenue, Beech Hill, who works for him, received 28 months.
They had both pleaded guilty to violent disorder.
Judge Andrew Menary, KC, the Recorder of Liverpool, said that those who choose to take part in disturbances involving damage and fear must expect to receive severe sentences.
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Hide AdHe said the disturbance was racially or religiously motivated and Benjamin had been at the fore front of the mob from an early stage throwing bricks and pieces of concrete at police including one which hit an officer.
The judge said that Shannon Gibson had been “in the thick of it” and threw bricks, one deliberately at the window of a police carrier while cheered on by others.
Defence barrister James Leroy, described them as “complete idiots” but said they were “ultimately good men living their lives well. For some reason, which they have been completely unable to explain to me, perhaps through their right shame, why they involved themselves.”
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Hide AdHe pointed out that neither had been wearing a mask and claimed they had gone to the town for the vigil but he accepted that the distance between that and the disturbance was about a mile.
The Gibsons are the latest in a growing list of Wigan men sent to prison for their involvement in the violence which broke out in the aftermath of the Southport stabbings.
Among other shamed local residents are Robbie Johnson, 28, of Norfolk Street, Springfield, who was jailed for three years.
And Dylan Carey, of Castle Hill Road, Hindley, was sentenced to one year and six months in prison after he too threw bricks at police.