Posts mislead on British man's jail sentence for online incitement during UK riots

"A UK man has been jailed for 20 months for making sarcastic comments about immigrants on social media," read a post in simplified Chinese shared on Weibo on August 10, 2024.

It mockingly added that British people "no longer have the right to look down on North Korea".

The post included a short clip showing a judge handing a guilty verdict. He could be heard saying in part: "The sentence is 20 months imprisonment. You will serve up to one-half of your sentence in custody before you are released on licence."

The video has been viewed more than 28,000 times.

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Screenshot of the misleading Weibo post, captured on September 19, 2024

The claim was shared the day after a judge in Leeds, northern England, jailed 28-year-old Jordan Parlour for posts encouraging people to attack a hotel in the city housing asylum seekers and refugees.

It was the first case of its kind linked to far-right riots sparked by a July 29 knife attack in which three children were killed, AFP reported.

Officials said false information spread on social media about the suspected perpetrator fuelled the disorder, which saw mosques and migrant-related facilities attacked alongside police and other targets.

Similar claims misrepresenting Parlour's conviction were also shared in Chinese posts on social media platform X, Weibo and Douyin. It also surfaced online in English.

Edited court footage

A reverse search of keyframes, followed by keyword searches, found the clip corresponded to live footage of the court session published by the British newspaper The Times on August 9, 2024 (archived link).

It was taken from the 17:31 mark to the 21:38 mark of the footage published by The Times -- but the judge's explanation of the sentence was omitted in the misleading posts.

In the longer footage, Judge Guy Kearl KC could be heard saying Parlour's Facebook posts met the criminal threshold for stirring racial hatred.

"You were encouraging others to attack a hotel which you knew was occupied by refugees and asylum seekers. The overall effect of your post was to incite violence towards the building and therefore towards those in the hotel," the judge said.

"It was not only the refugees and asylum seekers who were likely to be affected by your post but also the hotel managers, the night porters and those who worked within the hotel."

Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip circulated in misleading posts (left) and a corresponding frame from the longer footage (right):

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Screenshot comparison of the video misleadingly shared online (left) and the one published on YouTube by The Times (right)

The transcript of Parlour's sentencing hearing was also published by the UK's Courts and Tribunals Service (archived link).

The Crown Prosecution Service separately said in a statement on August 9 that Parlour was jailed for posting comments "advocating an attack" on the hotel (archived link).