Man jailed for Telegram race hate posts amid riots

Ehsan Hussain used a fake name to send racist messages on a Telegram channel popular with people with extreme right-wing views

A man who used a fake name to send "vile" racist messages on a messaging app with thousands of members to provoke violence has been jailed for two years and four months.

The court heard Ehsan Hussain, himself Pakistani, used the name Chris Nolan on a Telegram chat with nearly 12,500 members called Southport Wake Up.

The 25-year-old hoped to encourage violence in the Alum Rock and Bordesley Green areas of Birmingham.

The judge said Hussain wanted to incite members of the group to attend areas of the city with a large Muslim population where they "would be met with violence themselves".

During sentencing on Wednesday, Judge Melbourne Inman KC noted the Telegram chat was populated "by those who hold extreme right-wing and racist views".

Birmingham Crown Court heard Hussain, using the fake name, sent messages on 5 August, at the height of the disorder, seemingly aimed at Pakistanis, often accompanied by racial slurs.

In one, the chef told members "we need to take back what's ours".

Hours later, disorder broke out in those areas and a pub and a passing coach were attacked.

Ambulances were forced to divert away from the nearby Heartlands Hospital to other accident and emergency departments, while shops and GP surgeries in the area also closed.

Hussain pleaded guilty on 11 September at the city's magistrates' court to distributing "threatening, abusive or insulting" written material intending to stir up racial hatred.

Rag Chand, mitigating, said the defendant was "desperately remorseful" for what he had done and it had been a "colossal collapse of common sense and reason".

Referencing the riots in the summer, following the murder of three girls in Southport, Judge Inman said: "Some people used that tragedy as an opportunity to sow division and hatred, often using social media, which led to a number of towns and cities up and down the country being disfigured by mindless and racist violence, intimidation and damage."

Hussain was told he would serve half of his sentence in prison and the other half on licence.

The judge also ordered the destruction of the phone used to send the messages.