Jail for woman who used racial slurs

Aimee Hodgkinson-Hedgecox was jailed for two years and three months

A woman who chanted racial slurs while with her 11-year-old stepson during disorder in the summer has been jailed.

Aimee Hodgkinson-Hedgecox, of Stonydelph, Tamworth, was taking her stepson to a skate park when she got involved in unrest, sparked by events in Southport, outside the town's Holiday Inn Express .

A hearing at Stafford Crown Court was told she was captured on CCTV on 4 August chanting racist phrases and repeatedly challenging police.

She was sentenced to two years and three months in prison after pleading guilty to violent disorder at a previous hearing.

The 37-year-old was seen moving her stepson out of the way of missiles being thrown towards officers and recording footage, which she posted on social media.

Fiona Cortese, prosecuting, said that following her arrest, Hodgkinson-Hedgecox admitted she was shouting abuse about asylum seekers housed at the hotel.

She has 14 previous convictions involving 30 offences, the last of which was for battery in 2009, the court heard.

'Violent racist protest'

Stephen Rudge, defending, urged the court to consider alternatives to custody, including community work.

He said the defendant was "not somebody who holds overtly racist views or opinions".

"She sees the crowd and gets involved. It's a decision she bitterly regrets," he added.

Sentencing Hodgkinson-Hedgecox, Judge Jonathan Gosling accepted she did not use any direct violence herself but said she was lending support to an "extremely violent racist protest".

"This anarchy endangered the lives of those in the hotel and you tried to excuse your behaviour, which was born out of utterly conceived prejudice," he added.

"Those inside had a right not to be intimidated and terrified."

A fire was started in the Holiday Inn Express as part of the disorder in Tamworth

Hodgkinson-Hedgecox reacted angrily to her sentence, looking towards relatives in the public gallery and saying: "It's a joke."

She was one of six people who pleaded guilty in September to charges related to the disorder at the Holiday Inn Express.

Several incidents of violent disorder broke out in the UK after misinformation was spread about the identity of the alleged murderer of three girls in Southport earlier this year.