KEIR STARMER HAS told police in the UK to remain on high alert at a meeting between Government ministers yesterday, it is understood.

Starmer has said swift justice, including sentencing, has been a deterrent to more violent disorder as at least a dozen people were jailed yesterday for their part in the riots of the past 10 days.

The British Prime Minister vowed that anyone taking part in disorder in the United Kingdom will “feel the full force of the law”. Later today, some more sentencing hearings will be broadcasted on television.

Yesterday, a judge said two “thugs” had “added oxygen to the fire of disorder” as he jailed them both for their roles in protests in Plymouth.

Judge Robert Linford also jailed an anti-fascist protester who became involved in the disorder, and a fourth man who burgled a Tesco shop “in the context of public disorder”.

He told Plymouth Crown Court on Thursday: “On the evening of August 5 there was widespread, orchestrated public disorder in this city. Some people came here intent upon peaceful protest and peaceful counter-protest. Many came here intent not on peaceful protest nor peaceful counter-protest.”

He placed Michael Williams, 51, and 45-year-old Daniel McGuire in the latter group, telling them: “Thugs like you … ran amok.”

The judge told the two, who both admitted at earlier hearings to violent disorder, that they had “added oxygen to the fire of disorder”.

Williams, of Sparkwell, Devon, was “seen to be fighting and kicking another male”, the judge said, and was subsequently arrested. He dismissed as “ludicrous” Williams’ claim that a stone found in his jogging bottoms was a “healing stone”.

In video footage played to the court, Williams chanted “Allah, Allah, who the f*** is Allah” after his arrest, and repeatedly swore at police. Williams was sentenced to 32 months in prison.

McGuire, of Crescent Avenue, Plymouth, was “seen to repeatedly spit at the police” and video footage showed him “swearing and threatening to punch the police”, the judge said.

The court heard McGuire had been drunk at the time and returned after police asked him to leave. McGuire was jailed for 26 months.

The judge accepted that 29-year-old anti-fascist protester Lucas Ormond Skeaping “came to protest and to do so peacefully” but said that “things rapidly deteriorated”.

But the prosecuting solicitor said Ormond Skeaping was arrested after knocking a 17-year-old boy off a bike with a motorbike helmet.

Ormond Skeaping’s barrister said the defendant had lost his employment with a bicycle company, also admitted at an earlier hearing to violent disorder.

He said the defendant was “against fascism”, has no previous convictions and his ADHD may “in part explain his impulsive behaviour”. Ormond Skeaping was jailed for 18 months.

Additional reporting by Muiris O’Cearbhaill