Mosque blast bid man jailed over summer riots

A man who was previously jailed for trying to blow up a mosque has been sentenced to more than two years in prison for involvement in last summer's riots.

Ex-soldier Simon Beech, 36, of Stoke-on-Trent, pleaded guilty in November to violent disorder after being captured on CCTV throwing a missile at police officers.

He was sentenced at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court to two years and three months in prison for his part in the riots, sparked after the killing of three girls in Southport, for which Axel Rudakubana was jailed last month for a minimum of 52 years.

In 2011 Beech, of Chell Heath, attempted to blow up a mosque in Stoke, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

He was arrested last August after disturbances broke out in in Hanley.

In 2011, Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court heard Beech and another man - Garreth Foster - ran a pipe into the mosque from a nearby gas meter in a bid to spark an explosion.

The building sustained damage put at £50,000 as a result of a fire that broke out.

Beech told the court during his 2011 trial he had been a member of the English Defence League and the British National Party, but said he was not racist and did not believe his views to be extreme.

Commenting on his guilty plea after the riots, chairman of City Central Mosque Amjid Wazir said Beech did not seem to have learned any lessons.

Disorder spread across England last summer partly due to false claims online about Rudakubana.

Mr Wazir praised the actions by police and the legal system to bring those responsible to justice.

"When the riots were happening in Stoke, and elsewhere in the country, people were so scared of going out," he said.

"They were worried, they were nervous."

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