SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing Sheriff Sharp made the following remarks in court:

"At the trial diet of 2 February 2026, you tendered pleas of guilty to two charges arising from your involvement in the violent disturbances which occurred on Guy Fawkes night in 2024.

The charges to which you pled guilty in summary are: firstly that on 5 November 2024 you played a leading role in the mobbing and rioting which occurred in Captains Road and Gracemount Drive in Edinburgh; and secondly that you culpably and recklessly endangered the lives of the attending police officers. Your crimes are aggravated by use of a firework or pyrotechnic article in relation to an emergency worker.

Operation Crackle was established by the Police Service of Scotland to investigate the disorder which occurred despite the scale of police operations. That investigation involved painstaking review of very many hours of CCTV footage and established that you were one of the main instigators of the disorder, in consequence of which you have been brought to justice.

The CCTV footage first captures you at around 5.50pm that evening, when you can be seen signalling to others to join you. 5 minutes later you pulled on a balaclava to conceal your identity. You are subsequently shown leading others towards Captains Road.

At one stage you were stopped by officers and had the opportunity to go home with your parents. That ought to have caused you to take stock of your actions. Instead you changed out of the distinctive two-tone jacket you were wearing into a plain dark coloured jacket before rejoining the group. Almost immediately after that you are again shown leading the group and 7.22 pm you signalled to the group to follow you towards the police line, before helping a member of the group to light a firework which was then thrown at police.

At 8.16 pm you stood on top of a public bench distributing fireworks to members of the group and directed others to a stash underneath the bench. The mob then placed wheelie bins in the road and set off fireworks in the direction of police vehicles. You can be observed throwing fireworks at the vehicles.

Approximately half an hour later you formed part of a mob confronting the line of riot police who were advancing in an attempt to disperse the group. As others ran away you placed a lit firework on the ground in the path of the oncoming officers. The group reconfigured and you can be observed directing them where to aim more lit fireworks. You joined the group in throwing projectiles including fireworks and bottles at the police line.

You are last seen on CCTV at 9.32pm in Gracemount Drive holding up a firework for others to follow you and pointing towards police officers. You ultimately formed part of a smaller group which smashed up an unmarked police vehicle, during which you reached into the car and removed an item which you placed in your pocket. Your involvement spanned a period of almost four hours.

At the time of these crimes you were 18 years old.  You are now 19 and have no previous convictions and no matters pending.  The justice social work report prepared in advance of today’s sentencing diet is in largely positive terms. You benefit from the support and guidance of two loving parents and have secured stable, well remunerated full-time employment as a joiner. You are in good health and do not engage in substance abuse.

The author of the report concludes that you have accepted full responsibility for your crimes, have matured since commission of the offences and are remorseful. On that basis, he has assessed you as suitable for a community-based disposal.

It is important that you, and those affected by your actions, know the basis upon which I have approached sentence. The exercise of sentencing a young person is different from that of sentencing an older person, in particular because a young person will generally have a lower level of maturity, and a greater capacity for change and rehabilitation, than an older person.

This means I must have regard to your maturity at the time the offences were committed. Young people are generally less able to exercise good judgement when making decisions and I recognise that at the time of your crimes you thought less clearly about what could happen as a result of your actions, including the impact on any victim and others affected by those actions; and you took more risks.

As a consequence, I recognise that your culpability is lower than that of an older person who is to be sentenced for the same, or similar, offences.

The purposes of a sentence include: protection of the public; punishment; rehabilitation of offenders; giving the offender the opportunity to make amends; and expressing disapproval of offending behaviour.

Rehabilitation is a primary consideration when sentencing a young person. When selecting a sentence, the court should, where appropriate, seek to rehabilitate the young person and to reduce the risk of reoffending. The character of a young person is not as fixed as the character of an older person, and a young person who has committed a crime may have greater potential to change.

The full range of sentencing options remain open to the court. However, the nature and duration of a sentence imposed on a young person should be different from that which might be imposed on an older person being sentenced for the same, or similar, offences.

A custodial sentence should only be imposed on a young person when the court is satisfied that no other sentence is appropriate. If a custodial sentence is imposed on a young person, it should be shorter than that which would have been imposed on an older person for the same, or similar, offences in order that rehabilitation and integration can begin at an earlier date. As I have said, the justice social work report reflects optimism about your ability to be rehabilitated and progress already made.

Violet disorder on Bonfire night has been an acute problem in Edinburgh in recent years and you acknowledged the significant harm it has inflicted on your own local community in your discussions with the author of the report.

However, you represented to him that you became involved in the disorder that evening spontaneously as a result of peer pressure. That account is directly contradicted by the CCTV footage which was shown in court and the libel of the charges to which you pled guilty.

The behaviour you engaged in on the evening of 5 November 2024 cannot be tolerated. You played a leading role in a prolonged armed insurrection. You led marches towards riot police; distributed fireworks; discharged fireworks in the direction of police officers on foot and in police vehicles and incited others to do so; you vandalised an unmarked police car and took items from within it.  You endangered the lives of police officers deployed to protect your own community from grave harm.

The courts have made it clear that a very serious view is taken of offences involving violence towards emergency workers. The court should be acting and be seen to be acting in a way which discourages mass violence and disorder which may lead to serious injury or even needless deaths. Sentences which may cause individuals to think more carefully before becoming embroiled in riots and which reflect public concern about such incidents are appropriate.

Having given the matter very serious consideration and having weighed all the relevant factors, I have decided that only a prison sentence can adequately reflect the gravity of your offences and serve the interests of justice.

I will deal with these charges on a cumulo basis. In selecting the period of detention, I take full account of your young age, your lack of convictions, your remorse and your otherwise pro-social lifestyle. I have arrived at a headline sentence of 21 months, of which 3 months related to the aggravation by use of a firework or pyrotechnic article in relation to an emergency worker.

Although the plea was tendered at the trial diet, you offered to plead guilty after the first diet, but well in advance of the trial diet in the case. To reflect the utilitarian value of that plea, I will reduce the sentence I would otherwise have imposed by twenty percent, accordingly the sentence will be reduced to 16 months 24 days detention, which will run from today’s date.