Two vigilantes who joined a 400-strong mob that forced innocent family to flee their home over false rumours a paedophile lived there are jailed
- Father-of-one Nathan Scott, 32, was given three-and-a-half years in prison
- Sophie Evans, 20, from Wrexham, was also given 16 months in jail for her role
Two vigilantes have been jailed for joining a 400-strong mob that forced an innocent family to flee their home over false rumours that a paedophile lived there.
Nathan Scott, 32, and Sophie Evans, 20, were part of a violent crowd that smashed nearly all the windows of a home in Caia Park on Wynnstay Avenue, Wrexham, last year in April.
A door was damaged and a burning pizza box was also pushed through the letterbox of the house, leading to riot police being called.
Scott and Evans, both of Wrexham, were found guilty of violent disorder for their roles in the trouble.
Scott, who called the jury ‘paedophile lovers’, when he was found guilty at an earlier hearing of violent disorder, was jailed for three and a half years.
Nathan Scott, 32, who is a father-of-one, was given a three-and-a-half year prison sentence
Sophie Evans, 20, from Wrexham, was jailed for 16 months by a judge at Caernarfon Crown Court
Scott, who called the jury ‘paedophile lovers’, when he was found guilty at an earlier hearing of violent disorder, was jailed for three and a half years.
His co-accused Evans was jailed for 16 months by a judge at Caernarfon Crown Court.
Paul Smith, defending the father-of-one Scott, said his client was not at the scene from the start but arrived with his dog an hour into the disturbance.
He said Scott ‘may have been loud’ and ‘said a lot of things’ but was not a ringleader in the trouble at the house.
John Wyn Williams, defending Evans, said she was ‘ashamed’ of her actions and that she was a ‘young woman that’s still maturing’.
He added: ‘Her involvement is limited to threats alone. Her family tried to dissuade her from attending but there was an element of bravado driven from the emotion of the moment.’
Judge Niclas Parry told them that ‘ill-informed knowledge’ led to ‘an appalling incident of violent disorder’.
‘The residents of Caia Park were subjected to an appalling incident of violent disorder which began as a peaceful protest based on ill-informed knowledge involving some 30 people,’ he said.
‘It escalated into what can only be described as a large scale public disorder lasting for hours with as many as 400 people there.
A look at the 400-strong crowd that smashed nearly all of the windows of a home that was wrongly rumoured to belong to a sex offender
The mob also damaged a door and pushed a burning pizza box through the letterbox of the home in Caia Park on Wynnstay Avenue, Wrexham
‘Heavily outnumbered by as many as four-to-one, even after reinforcements arrived, the police realised the incident was suddenly a so-called “critical incident”.
‘Reinforcements were drafted from the far corners of north Wales on an emergency basis.’
Judge Parry added that Scott shouted a series of threats to hurt the family and urged protestors, including children, to resist police who tried to disperse the crowd.
He said: ‘Your attitude to authority was only underlined when on hearing the verdict in your trial. You stood and hurled verbal abuse at the jury, accusing them of being paedophile lovers.’
He told Evans: ‘You were clearly enjoying the extreme difficulties the police were experiencing and you were clearly seen chanting with the crowd.’
Both Evans and Scott were also handed a five-year restraining order banning of them from contacting any of the victims or mentioning them on social media.
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