Jurors heard Labour trade unionist who said “we need to cut all their throats, and get rid of them all” is “neuro diverse” and was bullied as a child before unanimously clearing him of encouraging violent disorder.
A jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court took 30 minutes to return a unanimous not-guilty verdict for 58-year-old councillor and trade unionist Ricky Jones, who hit headlines last year in the wake of the Southport child murders for addressing a left-wing protest crowd with a concerning message.
Standing on Hoe Street, Walthamstow, on August 7, 2024 while surrounded by Stand Up to Racism, Socialist Worker, and Amnesty activists Jones said through a public address system: “these people don’t give a shit about who they hurt… they are disgusting, Nazi fascists. We need to cut all their throats, and get rid of them all”. As he spoke, he drew his finger across his throat.
Jones had been a Labour party councillor at the time of the speech and was subsequently suspended. He remains an employee of a trade union.
Jones was arrested the following day “on suspicion of encouraging murder and for an offence under the Public Order Act” and subsequently pleaded not guilty at an initial hearing. The case was initially planned for January 2025 but was considerably delayed and was heard from Monday this week to determine whether he was guilty of “encouraging violent disorder”.
The prosecutor told the court evidence from Jones’ mobile phone showed his state of mind before the rally, given he’d co-written a statement by his local Labour chapter decrying anti-migrant violence protests and riots across the country. The co-written statement had said, reports Court News: “There is no excuse for what we’ve seen. No possible justification.
“This is mindless criminal thuggery, fuelled and perpetrated by the far right spreading their divisive, destructive ideas on the streets and on social media”.
The prosecution had said: “making this speech was capable of encouraging others to commit an offence. It was capable of stoking the flames and encouraging others to violence”.
Jones told the court he didn’t mean to call for killings and had said that by mistake. He said: “I was shocked by what I said… I don’t know why I said that. I was upset and overwhelmed by what was going on. I wasn’t thinking through my words… No, I didn’t mean it.”
He also told the court he didn’t believe his words could encourage violence and said he was sorry.
Jones referred to his childhood when he says he explained racist abuse and was bullied at school. The court also heard from psychiatrists who said they had found that Jones “suffers from neurodivergent challenges… ‘impaired verbal comprehension, potentially leading to misunderstanding the impact of his words (and) slow cognitive processing.”
The case has inevitably drawn conclusions to that of Lucy Connolly, the wife of a Conservative councillor who was arrested and then handed a 31-month jail term for a social media post that she quickly thought better of and deleted. Posted in the wake of the mass stabbing committed by Axel Rudakubana which left three girls dead and left 10 injured, Connolly had called for “mass deportations” and wrote “set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care”.
The judge handling her case decided “intended to incite serious violence”.
Brexit leader Nigel Farage, who has been a frequent critic of an alleged double standard in British justice which it is said is driven by the Prime Minister and his political activist Attorney General, responded to the not-guilty verdict to state: “This is another outrageous example of two-tier justice.”
His party colleague Zia Yusaf added: “Two tier justice in this country is out of control. In fact, Britain is now a country in which if you have the correct regime political views you can openly call for the death and murder of your political opponents, be caught on video doing so, and walk free as an innocent man”.
“This compares to Lucy Connolly”, Yusaf said, who claimed she had “tweeted out something that was nowhere near as directly insightful of violence as that awful speech” and yet was hit with a prison sentence.
The Conservatives also spoke out on the conclusion of the Jones case. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philip, who would have responsibility in the government for policing should the Conservative Party ever win another election — unlikely but they continue to hold the position of official opposition for now — called the case “astonishing”.
He said: “The development of two tier justice is becoming increasingly alarming. It cannot have been a question of uncertain evidence as Jones was on video clearly calling for violence. The government must come forward with plans to ensure justice is handed out equally, regardless of the background or views of the perpetrator – but as far as I can see this Labour government seems to be quite happy with two tier justice.”
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