Man jailed for trying to recruit riot mob

Sam Lowe, 21, pleaded guilty at Nottingham Crown Court to encouraging violent disorder when he sent a text message to 160 of his friends trying to get them to commit violence during the disorder in Nottingham city centre in August last year.

Nottinghamshire Police said the text message he sent read: “Girls, grannies, mums, dads, lads, granddads – everyone meet on Sneinton Dale tonight at 9 o’clock as we are all going to kick off...”

Lowe, of Keswick Court, Sneinton, Notts, was arrested in the early hours of August 9 as he walked along Robin Hood Street in St Ann’s.

Police were tipped off to a message he sent from his BlackBerry mobile phone earlier that evening in which he called for people to rise up against the police.

Nottinghamshire Police said that investigators found the text message, which also went on to suggest people show the police “what it’s all about”.

He implied that he was involved in the disorder and professed to having “a bin full of bricks”.

Detective Rich Henson, from Nottinghamshire Police, said the conviction was a triumph for the force. “The fact that BBMs have advanced security and encryption means they are almost impossible to access by third parties,” he said.

“That is why Lowe’s conviction is a particularly great result for the force, demonstrating some first-class work by our digital investigation unit.”

Detective Chief Inspector Rob Griffin, who is leading the investigation into the disorder, said: “It is impossible to quantify the impact and effects of the messages he sent that night. It is clear, however, that this was an irresponsible and criminal act at a time when people were rising up against the police on a national scale.”

So far, under Nottinghamshire Police’s Operation Constantia, 141 people have been arrested and 87 of them charged in connection with last year’s violent disorder in the city.