“Sick of these smelly scumbags."
Ehsan Hussain was jailed for two years and four months for using a fake name to stir up racial hatred in Birmingham during the 2024 UK riots.
Riots erupted in cities and towns across the UK, with many of the disorders caused by social media conversations.
The riots were sparked by a fake report about the identity of a man who stabbed three young girls to death in Southport.
Hussain used the name Chris Nolan, an innocent member of the public, to post several vile messages on Telegram.
His messages appeared on a Telegram group chat called “Southport Wake Up”, which had more than 12,000 members.
Screenshots of the messages, obtained by police, showed Hussain urging people to “conquer Alum Rock”, a predominantly Asian area, saying:
“Sick of these smelly scumbags.”
The 25-year-old from Yardley was also involved in a conversation with two other users.
His contribution included: “We’ve got a Blues match on Saturday; we can do a part 2 on Saturday get these p*** scums out.”
Other racist messages read “Birmingham first! We need to take back what’s ours” and “we doing p*** bashing”.
West Midlands Police was made aware that a member of the public unrelated to Hussain was wrongly identified on social media as being the source of the messages.
That man was spoken to by officers and is being supported.
Hussain pleaded guilty to distributing “threatening, abusive or insulting” written material intending to stir up racial hatred between August 3 and 6.
No details of the material written by Hussain were given to Birmingham Magistrates’ Court.
But his solicitor said the offending was “commissioned initially out of curiosity” after he was shocked at some posts and then wrote messages “to take a poke” at others.
Aftab Zahoor, defending, said Hussain had written messages after being “appalled” by other posts on a social media platform, which was not named in court, and had now “had time to reflect on matters”.
Mr Zahoor added: “He is apologetic and remorseful for his actions.”
Chief Superintendent Richard North, of West Midlands Police, said:
“This has been an excellent but complex investigation.”
“We would like to thank members of the public for alerting us to these posts, which was crucial at a time when we were seeing lots of rumour, speculation and misinformation online.
“We know this can be extremely harmful to all of our communities.
“We do not tolerate violence in our towns and cities, or tolerate those who use social media to encourage such violence.”
Hussain was jailed for two years and four months.
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