LF: The middle class 'rioters' revealed: The millionaire's daughter, the aspiring musician and the organic chef all in the dock [So Much for Demands of "Social Justice"]

Title: The middle class 'rioters' revealed: The millionaire's daughter, the aspiring musician and the organic chef all in the dock [So Much for Demands of "Social Justice"]
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art ... tefan-Hoyle.html#ixzz1UogKJGwE
Published: Aug 12, 2011
Author: Daily Mail Reporter
Post Date: 2011-08-12 16:59:27 by Capitalist Eric
Keywords: None
Views: 496

Poverty, social exclusion, poor education - these are just some of the theories put forward to explain the recent rioting. Yet shockingly, among those in the dock accused of looting are a millionaire's grammar school daughter, a ballet student and an organic chef.
A law student, university graduate, a musician and an opera steward also said to have taken part.
They are just some of the youngsters from comfortable middle-class backgrounds who have been charged with criminality.

Some of them were arrested at the scene, others handed themselves in after seeing their faces in photographs and on video. Whatever the reasons for their alleged trouble-making, it is clear that their future dreams could be crushed by their moments of madness.
Here are some of those allegedly involved...

Millionaire's daughter Laura Johnson, 19, was charged with stealing £5,000-worth of electronic goods, including a Toshiba TV, Goodmans TV, microwave and mobile phones.

The goods were allegedly found in a car being driven by Miss Johnson after a branch of Comet in Charlton, south-east London, was raided.

Bexleyheath magistrates heard that a 'public order kit' of balaclava, gloves and a bandana was also found in the car.

Miss Johnson attended St Olave's Grammar School in Orpington, Kent, the fourth best performing state school in the country, after transferring from its sister school Newstead Wood.

She achieved A’s in French, English literature, classical civilisation and geography A-levels, and is now studying English and Italian at Exeter University.

Her parents, Robert and Lindsay Johnson, live in a large detached farmhouse in Orpington. It has extensive grounds and a tennis court. They sold their previous house, near Greenwich, for £930,000 in 2006.

Miss Johnson's parents, who supported her in court, run Avongate, a direct marketing company.

Her father is a businessman with directorships in several companies. He was a director in a company that took over the Daily Sport and Sunday Sport newspapers in 2007.

During her schooling, Miss Johnson offered her services as a tutor. On a website she wrote: 'I was a student at Newstead Wood School for girls and gained four A*s and nine A grades at GCSE.'

Miss Johnson indicated a plea of not guilty to five counts of burglary and was granted bail on condition that she does not associate with the two men allegedly found with her.

She must wear an electronic tag, submit to a curfew between 7pm and 6am and not enter any London postcode. She is due to return to court on September 21.

Camberwell Green magistrates heard that a 17-year-old and Alexander Elliot-Joahill, 18, were allegedly passengers in the car. Both were denied bail and will next appear on September 7.

University graduate Natasha Reid, 24, came from a comfortable family home and studied at university to achieve her dream of becoming a social worker.

But her career hopes are now in jeopardy after she stole a £300 JVC television from a battered Comet store on her way home.

You young woman had been eating at a McDonalds fast-food chain when she became involved in the opportunistic looting.

Reid, from Edmonton, north London, yesterday pleaded guilty at Westminster Magistrates Court to theft and entering with intent to steal.

The young woman told the court that she was so overcome with guilt after stealing the TV on Saturday evening that she handed herself in to the police the next day. They promptly arrested her.

Reid's mother, Pamela, said that her daughter was baffled by her criminal behaviour as she already has a 27-inch TV in her bedroom.

'She didn't want a TV. She doesn't even know why she took it. She doesn't need a telly,' the girl's mother told the Times.

Pamela said that her daughter had cancelled her holiday which was due to begin to tomorrow.

She has been spending the last week sobbing in her bedroom as she comes to terms with the effect that a conviction will have on the hopes of her future career.

'She's not eaten this morning. She hasn't slept since Sunday night. She's shaking. She was bawling her eyes out,' Reid's mother added.

Miss Reid was too upset to speak and was being comforted in her room by her father. She will be sentenced next month.

Stefan Hoyle was clutching a looted violin when he was arrested in the aftermath of riots in Manchester.

Smelling strongly of drink, the aspiring musician quipped: “I’ve always wanted to learn to play the violin.” His parents wept in the dock as district judge Alan Berg told the 19-year-old it was an “absolute tragedy” that he had thrown away his prospects in this way.

Hoyle, of Manchester, was arrested at 3am on Wednesday when police encircled a group of youths and saw him clutching the violin, thought to be from a music shop which had earlier been looted.

He tried to run away as police arrested a girl, but the court heard he was chased and caught, telling officers: “I can understand why people riot, you really are fascist ********.”

Hoyle had never been in trouble before and is on Jobseekers” Allowance, the court heard.

Sentencing him to four months in a young offenders” institution for theft, Judge Berg told Hoyle he had brought “shame and disgrace” on his family. But he told the shamefaced teenager: “Nobody forced you to get drunk and pick up the violin.”

An aspiring ballerina was arrested after police published images of her looting two boxed flat screen TVs from a hi-fi store where £190,000 of damage was caused.

The 17-year-old, who has been studying ballet since she was seven and wants to be a dance teacher, gave herself up after seeing a CCTV image of herself in a newspaper.

The dancer was among a group of masked women caught on camera looting Richer Sounds, in Croydon.

She was remanded in custody. She in understood to have turned herself in at the front counter of Croydon police station.

Yesterday she admitted burglary after film footage showed her removing two televisions from the store.

The 17-year-old is due to start a course at a dance academy on September 21, and wants to study health and social care. But a criminal conviction could end her chances of working with children and young people.

Goods to the value of £190,000 are estimated to have been stolen from the hi-fi and home cinema store. The shop suffered £15,000 in damage.

Law student Marouane Rouhi, 21, is alleged to have been part of gang of 16 that stormed cafes and restaurants in St John's Wood, London.

The second-year university law student was remanded in custody after being charged with violent disorder after the incident shortly after midnight on Wednesday.

Rouhi, from north west London, is said to have been among a large group of between 30 and 50 disorderlies who were involved in the trouble.

Up to 50 masked men armed with knives and lighter fuel attacked Le Bijou and other restaurants.
Rouhi is currently mid-way through a law degree and is understood to be fighting to clear his name.

Any conviction would almost certainly end his dreams of working in the legal profession.

Prosecutor Becky Owen told Westminster magistrates that the group 'ransacked properties and terrorised customers' in the area around Lodge Road.

She said between 30 and 50 people were involved in the disorder and added: 'Eventually customers rallied and chased the group off.'

Solicitor Jim Kelly said his client was keen to clear his name so that he could continue to pursue his legal ambitions. THE COLLEGE STUDENT Offender

Nicholas Robinson, 23, was jailed for six months for looting a £3.50 case of water from Lidl.

The college student was walking back from his girlfriends house in Brixton in the early hours of Monday morning when he saw the superstore on Acre Lane being looted.

He took the opportunity to go in and help himself to a case of water because he was 'thirsty'.
But when the police came in, at around 2.40am, he discarded the bottles and attempted to flee the scene.

He was caught and arrested by officers at the scene. Wearing a black leather jacket, the electrical engineering student, looked shocked as he was jailed by District Judge Alan Baldwin at Camberwell Magistrates Court yesterday.

Robinson, from south London, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a charge of burglary of a place other than other than a dwelling (theft).

There were gasps from the public gallery as the judge handed down the maximum penalty he could to Robinson, who has no previous convictions, for his part in the 'chaos'.

District Judge Baldwin said: 'The burglary of commercial premises in circumstances such as this, where substantial and serious public disorder is or has taken place is commonly known as looting.'

A student who acts as a Baptist Church mentor for younger boys looted jewellery and clothing from shops in Clapham Junction, West London Magistrates were told.

Scott Bates, 18, admitted stealing trainers from JD Sports, watches from Debenhams, and a hooded top from Primark.

Bates told officers he had gone to Clapham Junction on Monday evening to watch the riots and found the items lying around outside the shops.

His solicitor Joan Mitchell said Bates was an active member of his local baptist church and mentored younger members of the congregation.

Although he has previous convictions for robbery and theft, Bates had 'turned his life around', she claimed.

District judge Paul Clark told Bates he would go to prison, probably for more than 12 months.

Gassam Ojjeh, 22, was accused of attempting to steal from a branch of PC World in Colliers Wood, South London the day after it had been devastated by rioters.

Westminster Magistrates heard he was caught by a police dog handler at the store with students Saffron Armstrong and Kairo Lawson, both 21.

Armstrong, an accounting student at Kingston University, claimed to be a freelance journalist when he was caught. Lawson, a civil engineering student at South Bank University, had to be restrained by police and was punched repeatedly in the back.

Ojjeh, an estate agent, denied burglary. The two other men admitted the same charge. All three were remanded in custody.
THE ORGANIC CHEF:

Fitzroy Thomas, of Streatham and his 47-year-old brother, Ronald, allegedly smashed up a branch of Nando's, the chicken restaurant, in Clapham, south London, and stole a laptop.

The pair pleaded not guilty at Camberwell Green Magistrates Court in south London and were remanded in custody, the Times reported.

19-year-old Nan Asante, who had recently taken up a job as a steward at an outdoor opera venue in London's upmarket Holland Park district, pleaded not guilty to looting a supermarket.

A star pupil from £1m home. How did she end up in the dock?

By Paul Bracchi

Privilege: Laura Johnson, left, and friend in a photo posted on Facebook last year

Balaclava. Gloves. Bandana. Could the “evidence” allegedly in the car Laura Johnson was found driving be more sinister? The items, the police claim, were part of a “public order kit” used to loot shops during the riots.

But this is not the most shocking aspect of the story you are about to read.

For the 19-year-old who found herself in the dock before Bexleyheath magistrates on Wednesday, flanked by uniformed security guards, charged with five counts of burglary in connection with the theft of goods from stores was perhaps the very last person you would expect to be implicated in the mayhem of the past week.

According to the prosecution, she was the getaway driver for a gang which pillaged branches of Curry’s, Comet, Halfords, and PC World as well as a BP service station in south-east London.

Getaway driver? It is a description her mother and father, sitting at the back of the court, will scarcely be able to comprehend.

The family live in a £1million detached converted farmhouse, with extensive grounds and a tennis court, in leafy Orpington, Kent.

Her millionaire parents, Robert and Lindsay, are successful company directors who run the direct-marketing firm Avongate.

Mr Johnson was also a director of a company that took over the Daily Sport and Sunday Sport newspapers in 2007.

Their daughter attended St Olave’s Grammar, the fourth-best state school in the country, and its sister school, Newstead Wood, gaining nine GCSE A Grades and four A*s.

The star pupil studied A-levels in French, English literature, geography, and classical civilisation before gaining a place at Exeter University where she is an English and Italian undergraduate.

Proof, if any more were needed, of Laura’s privileged upbringing is revealed in family photographs posted on the internet.

In one, on Facebook, she is dressed in a long black evening gown, glass of red wine in hand, hugging a blonde school friend. There is a swimming pool in the background.

Laura Johnson's £1m detached family home in Orpington, Kent. It has extensive grounds and a tennis court

Whatever the reasons for Laura”s ignominious predicament, they appear to have nothing to do with alienation or despair; not that this is any excuse for the shameful events that have scarred the country this week.

Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a young woman with a brighter future: a future which has now been jeopardised, perhaps irrevocably so.

How and why she came to be driving a car, which, it is claimed, contained a £5,000 haul of stolen goods - including two television sets, a microwave, a Blu-ray player, mobile phones, cigarettes and alcohol - is a matter for her pending trial.

Laura was granted conditional bail and is due to return to court next month, having pleaded not guilty to the charges against her. The case is expected to be committed to the Inner London Crown Court.

One of her alleged accomplices is 18-year-old Alexander Elliott-Joahill. The other, a 17-year-old, cannot be named. The younger boy’s mother, a secondary school teacher, said her son was a “good boy” who had gone for a job interview in the City earlier this week.

The well-spoken woman, who lives in a two-storey terraced house in south-east London, added: “He is doing a business qualification, so he has taken his CV to an interview on Monday.

“He’s a complete coward and hates fighting so I don”t understand how he could have got caught up in this.

“I spoke to him at 1.30am on Tuesday morning and told him to be careful of the riots and that I was worried. He said he’d be coming home. He knows [Alexander Elliott-Oakhill] but I’ve never heard him mention this Laura girl.”

The prosecution claim the three had “driven around stealing from shops with windows kicked in during the rioting ......... and were active participants in looting” before being apprehended by the police.

How painful - and embarrassing - these details must have been for Laura”s family sitting in the public gallery, as must be the continued police activity at their home.

Yesterday, five officers spent about 30 minutes inside, although it was unclear whether they were taking statements or searching for something in particular.

Mr and Mrs Johnson, who also have two sons, Rory, 21, and Scott, 17, did not wish to comment. Laura”s grandparents, John and Irene Temple, were visibly shocked when informed of her arrest at their Fife home and also declined to comment.

A glimpse of the world Laura inhabited, or at least her family thought she inhabited, is revealed on a website where she once advertised her services as a tutor.

Her entry says: “My name is Laura Johnson, a sixth form student studying English Literature, classical civilisation, geography and French at St Olave”s Grammar School.

“One of my A’s is in English which I intend to carry on at university level.”

But for how long? The University of Exeter, where Laura has just finished her first-year exams, said they would await the outcome of criminal proceedings before “deciding on whether to take any action.”