Four men are jailed over racist 'rampage'

More than 200 people attended the demonstration in support of the armed forces in Luton on May 24 last year.

The march was held to counter an earlier protest by Muslims against British soldiers.

James Butler, 18, Tony Griffiths, 27, Simon Hattle, 21, and Richard Myers, 21, pleaded guilty to affray at a previous hearing and were handed prison sentences at Luton Magistrates' Court yesterday.

The court was shown CCTV footage of some members of the crowd waving St George flags and others chanting "scum, scum, scum". Some tried to smash the windows of a chicken shop owned by an Asian man.

A car occupied by Asian men was attacked, another Asian man was kicked while he was on the ground and some of the protesters clashed with police.

District Judge Carolyn Mellanby, sentencing, told the men: "You were all most certainly part of the crowd who rampaged through Luton town centre for the whole of an hour.

"You drew attention to yourselves with your aggressive, violent behaviour. It will be a lasting image of mine of that man being attacked in the most unpleasant way outside his shop."

Butler, from Crawley, West Sussex, Griffiths, from Caddington, Bedfordshire, and Hattle, from Luton, were jailed for 16 weeks each and told they must serve eight weeks.

Myers, from Luton, was sentenced to 28 weeks in prison, of which he must serve 14.

Butler, who had drunk 11 pints of beer that day, admitted to police after he was arrested that he may have kicked someone, the court was told.

Griffiths was captured on CCTV kicking an Asian man on the ground but denied it was racially motivated.

Hattle was seen on the footage chanting "scum, scum, scum" and throwing a pole at police, prosecutor Jason Wolfe told the court.

Myers was seen kicking the front of the chicken shop.