Demonstrators toss a trash bin during an anti-immigration protest, in Rotherham, Britain, August 4, 2024.
Credit: Reuters File Photo
London: A Pakistani-origin man who used a fake identity to stir up racial hatred online during last month's riots in different parts of the UK has been sentenced to two years and four months imprisonment after admitting to disseminating offensive messages on social media.
Ehsan Hussain, 25, was sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court on Wednesday after a West Midlands Police investigation revealed he had used a fake name belonging to an innocent member of the public. He is said to have posted “numerous and vile messages” through the app Telegram in a chat group containing over 12,000 members during far-right and anti-immigrant violent disorder in August. The police presented screenshots captured of the posts, which called for disorder in Alum Rock and Bordesley Green in Birmingham and incited racial violence.
“This has been an excellent but complex investigation,” said Chief Superintendent Richard North from Birmingham Police.
“We would like to thank members of the public for alerting us to these posts which was crucial at a time when we were seeing lots of rumour, speculation and misinformation online; we know this can be extremely harmful to all of our communities. We do not tolerate violence in our towns and cities, or tolerate those who use social media to encourage such violence,” he said.
The police were made aware that a member of the public unrelated to Hussain was wrongly identified on social media as being the source of the messages. The police said that the innocent man has been spoken to by officers and is being supported.
Earlier, Birmingham Crown Court heard how Hussain, under the guise of a fake name, sent messages appearing to be aimed at Pakistanis and often accompanied by racial slurs. Court reports from the sentencing hearing reveal that Judge Melbourne Inman noted the Telegram chat Hussain posted on was populated by "those who hold extreme right-wing and racist views".
The messages are believed to have been followed by violence, which was triggered in different parts of the country last month in the wake of the killing of three young schoolgirls at a Taylor Swift themed dance class in Southport, near Liverpool, on July 29.
Hussain was told he would serve half of his sentence behind bars and the other half on parole under strict licence conditions. The judge also ordered the destruction of the phone he used to send the messages.