A woman who spent a week in prison separated from her two young children after she handled a pair of shorts looted from Manchester city centre during the riots by her lodger has been freed on appeal. Ursula Nevin, 24, of Stretford, Greater Manchester, slept through the riots, but was jailed for five months after admitting handling stolen goods looted by her lodger.
The day after the riot Nevin had tried on and decided to keep a pair of shorts her housemate Gemma Corbett, 24, looted from the Vans store in the Northern Quarter of the city.
Judge Andrew Gilbart QC sitting at Manchester crown court said the sentence had been "wrong in principle" because she had not been at the scene of the disturbances. A Facebook campaign had been set up to free her. The hearing was thought to be one of the first appeals to be heard on a sentence given at a magistrates' court involving the disturbances across England last week.
Nevin – who has two children aged one and five – was ordered to do 75 hours unpaid work instead. The judge said she must have felt she had been "trapped in a circle of hell".
Opening the case, Michael Morley said Nevin – who has no previous convictions – had the "misfortune" to have Gemma Corbett as a lodger.
The following day, police were tipped off that Corbett had been boasting about the haul and arrested her at the call centre where she worked in Sale. Corbett confessed to burglary and Nevin later admitted handling a pair of shorts taken in the raid.
Last week, she was jailed at Manchester magistrates court by a district judge, who told her she was supposed to be a role model for her children. But the sentence was criticised by civil rights campaigners who expressed general unease about the severity of some of the sentences being handed out.
Richard Vardon, representing Nevin at the appeal hearing, said the doting mother had been put in a terrible position by her housemate – and had been devastated to find herself separated from her children and in jail.
"She is absolutely disgusted by those who wreaked havoc on this city. She is both ashamed and humiliated by appearing before a crown court", he said.
"Hers has been a very public shame and a very public humiliation indeed. She was offered a pair of shorts which she quite foolishly and dishonestly decided to keep for herself. She's paid an extremely high price for her limited criminality."
Judge Gilbart said: "Ursula Nevin did not go into Manchester city centre – we regard it as wrong in principle that she was made the subject of a custodial sentence." Outside court, her supporters said: "She's happy, she does wants to get back to her kids and her family.
The judge, who is the recorder of Manchester, said he had indicated in previous sentencing remarks on looters that a distinction could be made for people receiving stolen goods who had not been physically present during the disorder throughout Manchester city centre and Salford shopping precinct last Tuesday.
He told her to leave the court and go and look after her children, as her relatives wept in the public gallery. Following her sentence last week, Greater Manchester Police were forced to apologise after someone gleefully tweeted the news of her five-month jail sentence.
Paul Mendelle QC, a former chair of the Criminal Bar Association, welcomed the Manchester court's decision to reduce Nevin's sentence to a non-custodial punishment. "Seventy-five hours of community work is still fairly stiff," he said. "She would normally have received a fine.
"It proves what a number of people have been saying that as time lends a certain amount of distance, the courts begin to see that some below have been over-reacting."
Successive appeal court judgments have established that those actually participating in widespread public disorder would normally expect a prison term, he added. "As recently as 2010, there was a court of appeal authority that said if you take part in this sort of behaviour [widespread public disorder] you must expect a prison term – even if you plead guilty.
"But even well educated young people don't pay a great deal of attention to sentencing authorities when they are making a nuisance of themselves. Charlie Gilmour [the Cambridge student who swung from the Cenotaph during student protests] received 16 months."
Senior lawyers have also expressed concern about the high proportion of suspects who have been remanded in custody following the riots, pointing out that bail conditions should not be used as a means of punishment or deterrence.
The Law Society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, said justice "must be administered effectively and fairly and with calm heads". "We must avoid unnecessary cost to the public purse that could arise from dealing with wrongful convictions or sentences that go on to be challenged," a spokesman said. The Citizens' Advice Bureau had also expressed misgivings earlier this week about excessively harsh sentences.
In another case, a man in Manchester was jailed for 16 months after stealing a doughnut during the riots. Thomas Downey, 48, was released from HMP Manchester on 9 August shortly before getting caught up in the riots. He attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting before downing a bottle of sherry and stumbling into a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop and stealing doughnuts. He admitted burglary and breach of an Asbo by entering part of the city centre from which he is prohibited.
Two young men who attempted to organise disturbances in their home towns on Facebook pages were this week jailed for four years each. Jordan Blackshaw, 20 and Perry Sutcliffe, 22, were jailed at Chester crown court after they organised events to which no one but the police turned up.
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