A Labour councillor who called for protesters’ throats to be cut has been cleared of encouraging violent disorder – sparking a furious reaction.
Ricky Jones made the inflammatory comments at a counter-demonstration in north London in response to anti-migrant rallies sparked by the Southport stabbings.
In a video from the event in Walthamstow on August 7, 2024, Jones is seen telling cheering supporters: ‘They are disgusting Nazi fascists. We need to cut all their throats and get rid of them all.’
The 58-year-old also drew his finger across his throat as he spoke to the crowd.
However, jurors at Snaresbrook Crown Court found him not guilty of encouraging violent disorder this morning after deliberating for just over half an hour.
Former Home Secretary and Tory leadership candidate James Cleverly called the verdict ‘perverse’.
He wrote on X: ‘This is unacceptable. Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn’t a dispassionate criminal justice system.’
Meanwhile, Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf has said the decision showed ‘two tier justice in this country is out of control’.
‘The Labour councillor literally caught on video calling for people to slit the throats of his political opponents has been found not guilty,’ he said.
‘Meanwhile Lucy Connolly gets 31 months in jail? Two tier justice in this country is out of control.’
Connolly pleaded guilty last year to a charge of inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing ‘threatening or abusive’ written material on social media which meant she did not face a trial.
Jones, who has been a borough councillor in Dartford, Kent, since 2019, was suspended by the Labour Party the day after the incident.
The politician, who at the time was also employed as a full-time official for the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) union, was arrested on August 8 last year and interviewed at Brixton police station that night.
Prosecutor Ben Holt previously told the court that Jones, a father of four and grandfather, used ‘inflammatory, rabble-rousing language in the throng of a crowd described as a tinderbox’.
He told jurors Jones’s speech was amplified through a microphone and speakers and took place ‘in a setting where violence could readily have been anticipated’.
Superintendent Jack May-Robinson previously told the court: ‘Any spark could have led to an incident or disorder occurring.’
But during his evidence, Jones instead described the mood in the crowd at the time as ‘happy and joyful’, adding: ‘There clearly wasn’t any upset or anger from any people in that scene, because they clearly knew it was about what happened on the train.’
Jones said his comment did not refer to anti-migrant protesters involved in the riots at the time, but to those who had reportedly left National Front stickers on a train with razor blades hidden behind them.
Before he made the comment, jurors were shown video where he said to crowds: ‘You’ve got women and children using these trains during the summer holidays.
‘They don’t give a s*** about who they hurt.’
He told the court he was ‘appalled’ by political violence, adding: ‘I’ve always believed the best way to make people realise who you are and what you are is to do it peacefully.’
Jones said he has been affected by ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia.
Asked in court how his ‘neuro diversity’ had influenced what he said, Jones replied: ‘I believe I was distracted. You heard a person shouting ”yeah talk your talk”. He got very excited. He didn’t know that his jeering was going to distract me.
‘If you go back to the video, you can see there is a person seven or eight rows behind me. He is not even listening to what I was saying. He was listening to someone else.
‘What I’ve learnt from this is to never stand up again and speak at a demonstration when you haven’t prepared what you are going to say.’
Axel Rudakubana, whose family moved to Britain from Rwanda in 2002, was found guilty of murdering Ellie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice Da Silva Aguiar, nine, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on July 29, 2024.
He was also convicted of ten attempted murders, one of producing the biological toxin ricin and one of possession of an Al Qaeda training manual. He was jailed for 52 years.
The killings sparked riots nationwide after false rumours online that Rudakubana was a Muslim asylum seeker who had recently arrived in Britain on a small boat.
