POLL: Should 13-year-old boy have been convicted for taking part in UK riots? | United Kingdom | news

A 13-year-old girl who says she was “wrong” to take part in UK riots is dividing opinion over whether she should have been given a lifetime criminal record.

The schoolgirl was caught up in the attack on an asylum seeker hotel in the summer and the courts have handed down her sentence.

In an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk, the young woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, revealed she has been left fearing for the future after a dizzying justice process.

Now you can let us know if you think taking the girl through the legal system was the right decision by taking our poll.

The girl, who just turned 13 a month before the incident, said: “I made a mistake but I don’t deserve a criminal record.

“I’m sorry and I regret kicking the door in. It was quite scary at the time and there were men screaming outside and screaming inside the hotel.

“I was scared to go to the police and the courts, I cried, it was horrible to see my parents go through this with me. I’m worried about my future now and what jobs I could get.”

Her parents only discovered their son was caught up in the chaos after police released a photo of her alongside grown men as part of a disturbance appeal.

Fearing for their daughter’s safety, the frantic parents contacted officers to remove the image and took her to the station.

Thinking the scare of a police interview would be punishment enough, they said they left the police station under the impression it would probably be a “slap on the wrist”.

Instead, there was an outcome that neither of them expected.

Her stepfather said: “We called and told the police that our daughter was involved, and they said we need you to come in for a voluntary interview.”

Days later, the stunned couple were told officers would charge their daughter with violent disorder. A legal children’s charity has described the move as “extremely worrying” as the family were brought before the court the next day with no time to prepare.

With only a duty lawyer to advise them, the family made the decision to plead guilty. The court heard the girl was taken to the protest outside the Potters International Hotel, which houses asylum seekers, by a father of a friend.

A police body-worn video showed the teenager briefly kicking and banging on a hotel door as voices could be heard telling him to stop. Sentencing her, the district judge told the girl it was a “serious and very unpleasant offence”.

The youth pleaded guilty to violent disorder and was sentenced at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court to a 12-month referral order on September 30. Three months were added to the order due to what was considered the racially aggravated nature of the offence.

The girl told Express.co.uk: #“The judge said he was racist, but I’m not racist, I don’t know any of this stuff, I have friends who are not the same race as me.

“My best friend is of mixed heritage, my visiting friends are Albanian immigrants, they teach me cooking and nail art. I use the nail designs to decorate my phone case.”

In a statement released after the sentencing, Hampshire’s chief deputy constable Paul Bartolomeo said: “While we appreciate her age, the girl’s behavior was still completely unacceptable and her actions caused fear of violence in the people at the hotel and our agents.”

A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said: “We prosecuted cases quickly during the riots to restore law and order to our streets.

“Our attorneys look carefully at the circumstances of children who are referred to us to make sure it is in the public interest to press charges.”