Only prosecute children over riots as last resort, says youth justice chair

Exclusive: Keith Fraser warns against quick decisions after boys as young as 11 were involved in recent disorder

Children who took part in the recent riots should only be prosecuted as “a last resort”, the head of the body that oversees the youth justice system in England and Wales has said, warning against a rush to punish those involved.

Keith Fraser, the chair of the Youth Justice Board, said it was a “real, real worry” that boys as young as 11 were involved in the disorder but he cautioned against making snap decisions to haul them before the courts.

“If there was a message that I’d want to get out here it’s that we don’t come to really quick decisions about what should happen to children who’ve been involved in the disorder, it’s that we consider it on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

As of 15 August, 58 children and young people had been prosecuted as part of Keir Starmer’s “swift and robust” response to the worst civil unrest in England since 2011.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said 145 juveniles – aged 10 to 17 – had been arrested in relation to the disorder. Of those, 58 had been charged with criminal offences.

Thirty-five of those arrested by police were aged 14 and under – a quarter of the total – and they included two 11-year-olds and six 12-year-olds.

An NPCC spokesperson said it was “important to avoid the unnecessary criminalisation of children and young people” but that police had a duty to respond appropriately “in the context of the serious disorder we have seen”.

“This can include the arrest and charge in the case of violent disorder and other serious offences,” they said.

The total number of people charged in relation to the disorder was 547 by Monday night, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The CPS has not released figures on the number of young people charged.

Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, said this month that he had ordered prosecutors to make immediate charging decisions as soon as there was sufficient evidence.

He said it was “deeply disturbing” that many young people were involved in the disorder and warned they faced “lifelong consequences”, including a criminal conviction and a marker on the Police National Database.

Boys as young as 11, including a 12-year-old with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), are among the dozens prosecuted so far.

An 11-year-old boy was charged with riot, throwing petrol bombs and possessing an offensive weapon after anti-immigrant disorder in Belfast last month. He will be sentenced on 6 September.

Most of the youths involved have been charged with violent disorder, which carries a maximum sentence of a two-year detention and training order, the first half of which must be served in a young offender institution.

A 15-year-old boy from Sunderland will be sentenced next week after becoming the first to be charged with riot, a more serious charge that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment for adults.

Fraser, a senior former police officer, said the CPS was “really committed” to taking alternative approaches towards youths but it was a “sad fact” that some children would have to be prosecuted.

He told the Guardian: “My hope is that there has been individual consideration in relation to each child. That [prosecution] has ultimately got to be a last resort and deemed necessary by all those involved.

“There’s nothing that we are saying from a Youth Justice Board perspective that says that children should not be prosecuted, but every consideration must take place first to ensure that is the right outcome. And then if children are prosecuted we do all that we can to make sure that children do not come back into the system.”

As many as 485 children and young people were prosecuted for taking part in the 2011 riots, which were sparked by the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan in north London.

One study later showed that as many as two-thirds of those in court had some form of special educational needs, compared with an average of just over one in five among secondary school pupils.

Steph Roberts-Bibby, the chief executive of the Youth Justice Board, said she was “appalled” by the violent scenes after the murder of three young girls at a holiday club in Southport on 29 July.

She said social factors including “poverty, alienation from both school and police, and a lack of trust in policing” were at play for the young people involved, part of a generation experiencing alarming levels of anxiety after the Covid pandemic.

“Whilst there is a comparison to 2011 to [the disorder] we’ve recently seen, the context in which children live their lives is totally different,” Roberts-Bibby said.

Fraser said there would need to be a wide-ranging review to understand why young people got involved in the disorder, but he stopped short of calling for an official inquiry akin to the Scarman report into the 1981 Brixton riots.

He said: “We do need to learn the lessons from what’s happened here but, whatever approach we have, it needs to be distinct and focused around children and young people and understanding it from that perspective.”

A Little Thought:

One way or the other they need to be held to account for their actions during the riots.

There are two scenarios, either the parents rioted with the children or the children were out on their own without parental guidance as is often the case.

If the children are not held accountable then the parents must be, doing otherwise means people see the rioting as acceptable and without repercussions.

Another day, another speech from Sir Kier

After giving a depressing, drab and unfunny speech in Downing Street yesterday, Keir Starmer is today speaking in Germany, where that sort of thing is more appreciated

Return of the Fake Heiress: She was the star of a hit Netflix show showing her life defrauding gullible high society marks. Now Anna Delvey is back... with a VERY surprising new money-making scheme

Drifting through an immaculately tended garden in a floaty dress to an atmospheric soundtrack, the woman tosses her long, tousled hair and gazes winsomely into the camera lens, showing off chiselled cheekbones, perfectly unlined skin and plump lips.

So it was that, posing like a fashion model, convicted fraudster Anna Sorokin heralded her return to Instagram last week after a two-year social media ban finally came to an end on August 7.

Never one to pass up an opportunity for self-promotion, Sorokin, better known as Anna Delvey, also swiftly uploaded footage of herself plugging a new reality TV show in which contestants need to deploy ‘deception, lying and not letting people see the real you’.

Traits, she acknowledges on film with a smirk, she knows something about.

Already she has 1.1million followers, and it’s only one of a raft of exciting new developments in Sorokin’s life, which include the relaxing of the rules around her house arrest.

She is now able to roam around Manhattan, the scene of her past crimes, and has been given an American social security number which enables her to work and will allow her to build her fledgling PR company, the suitably titled OutLaw Agency.

Ambitious as ever, she is due to produce shows for up-and-coming designers at next month’s New York fashion Week, even though she has little experience in the fashion industry, and is pitching a talk show to production companies.

She is still working on her memoir, has a striking new look that she insists has nothing to do with cosmetic surgery and hints that there is a new man in her life.

But for the inveterate self-publicist – whose story inspired the hit Netflix series Inventing Anna – it’s her return to what she calls her ‘socials’ which is perhaps most important.

‘I’m grateful to be able to control my own narrative again,’ the 33year-old told me. ‘When my lawyers called me with the decision, it was overwhelming, a big relief – the same kind of feeling I had when I got out of jail.

‘I made mistakes but I’ve grown up and I’m in a different mindset now. I want to get on with the rest of my life. I hope people will see that I’ve changed and that I’m not the same person, and they’ll give me the opportunity to move on.’

While a decision about her longterm future in the US is still pending and she still has to wear an ankle tag, these are the clearest signs yet that Sorokin’s most remarkable reinvention is on the cards – from convicted con artist to legitimate US businesswoman.

Certainly she seems happy to be enjoying the limelight again, even if the days of fraudulently claiming to be a wealthy heiress are behind her. The so-called trust fund babe had boasted of having a $60million fortune overseas but was, in fact, the daughter of a Russian truck driver who had moved his family to Germany.

Posing as a glamorous and highly plausible socialite and art lover, she infamously spent ten months duping banks, law firms, hotels, a private jet company and some gullible acquaintances after arriving in the US in 2017.

In 2019, she was convicted of grand larceny and theft of services totalling more than £211,000.

Sorokin was released from prison in 2021 and for 13 months was restricted to an apartment in New York’s East Village, only allowed out once a week to check in with immigration officials. Then earlier this year she was permitted to decamp to the countryside, where she has been staying at the home of her business partner and publicist Kelly Cutrone.

On hearing the news that her house arrest conditions were being relaxed, Sorokin – who still prefers to use her ‘fake heiress’ surname Delvey – did something she has been unable to do for nearly two years: she went out for lunch and a spot of shopping with a friend at the upscale hudson Yards complex in Midtown Manhattan, home to designer boutiques and chic restaurants.

Being able to eat out and enjoy a spot of retail therapy for the first time in years was ‘surreal’, she said. After spicy tuna, salad and iced tea, Sorokin and her friend strolled around The Conservatory, an upmarket store whose ethos is ‘considered luxury’.

.

While it stocks clothes from designers such as Phillip Lim, Gabriela hearst and Alaia, Sorokin, who used to dress in Celine and Balenciaga before her downfall, restricted her purchases to a single modest purchase.

Admittedly, it was a $20 (£15) bar of artisanal soap from Provence. But it was hardly a splurge, so maybe the previously profligate Sorokin has indeed learned some hard lessons.

‘I’m planning to move back to Manhattan after the craziness of fashion Week is over,’ she tells me with relish from her current bolthole in upstate New York.

‘I’m looking at a couple of places downtown. I like the city. It feels like home. I know the best dry-cleaner, where to get a pedicure or get something tailored.

‘It’s a bit sleepy up here – everything closes at 9pm. I like to be in the centre of everything.’

Arguably, it was Sorokin’s desire to be at the centre of everything that got her into trouble in the first place.

When she arrived in the US in 2017, the former fashion intern’s aim had been to attract funding for an elite private members’ club and art destination under the umbrella of the grandiosely titled Anna Delvey foundation. During a month-long trial, jurors heard how the ruse funded her lavish lifestyle. Sorokin had taken up residence in splashy boutique hotels, patronised expensive restaurants and went on luxury holidays.

She threw around crisp $100 bills like confetti to waiters, concierges and drivers.

But in her wake was a trail of unpaid bills, as well as empty promises to repay ‘friends’ who had loaned her money. The ‘fake heiress’ was arrested in October 2017 after one of her ‘victims’ went to the police and assisted with a subsequent sting operation.

When Sorokin was released from prison in 2021, she immediately got into trouble with the authorities who did not take kindly to her boasting on Instagram: ‘I own this lawless f***ing city’ – leading to her being banned from social media. She insists she will be more conservative with her ‘socials’ this time around.

‘I’ve been going through my posts and deleting some stuff.

That one was pretty cringe,’ she admits in her distinctive highpitched voice, with its US, Russian and German inflections. ‘It’s one thing to post something for a hundred of your friends and another when you are posting for a million people. I’d never do that now.’

She adds: ‘I’m going to use it [social media] much less. Mainly for work, because it’s a way for me to launch projects. I’ve lost the urge to post everything about my life because so much of it was used against me during my immigration proceedings.’

She says she is excited about producing fashion shows next month for some local NY designers, a task she obviously sees as a step up on the ladder of the notoriously fickle and impenetrable fashion industry. She produced a similar show last year on the rooftop of her apartment building as a stunt when she was still under house arrest.

‘I’m doing casting, scouting for locations, talking to all the designers about what’s going to be in the collections and just making sure everything will run smoothly,’ she says of this latest effort. ‘I love fashion. It’s instant communication. It’s a great way to express yourself.’

She is also enthusiastic about a tentatively titled project called MyFakeTalkShow. Previous projects including a podcast and a reality TV show in which she hoped to persuade the likes of Madonna and Elon Musk to dine with her are not mentioned.

So who will the guests be on the putative show and what will they talk about? ‘We’re working on that,’ she replies.

Sorokin is more enthusiastic about a segment in which she would review kitchen gadgets, maybe to fund an unlikely enthusiasm for buying utensils herself. There’s a ping on my phone as Sorokin sends me a snapshot of her Amazon account which confirms she has ordered an impressive 510 items this year alone. She is such a prolific customer of the online shopping portal that her friends now call her ‘Anna-zon’, she says.

‘I wasn’t able to leave the house so I had to order everything from Amazon and I was constantly getting packages. I love quirky devices. Already I’ve found this great garlic press and a cherry pitter and an electronic candle lighter.’

A beauty segment in which she will review make-up and skin care products is also in the offing.

Talking of make-up and skin care, her followers on Instagram have speculated that Anna has had work done – the removal of buccal fat (between the cheekbones and jaw bones) and Botox to be exact. In her new videos, she certainly looks different.

Her lips are fuller and her cheekbones look more sculpted.

But when I ask about tweakments she replies airily: ‘I lost weight because I’ve been in the country and walking more and getting fresh air. People are comparing me to old pictures from court when I had no make-up on or when I’d just got out of prison. I’ve aged seven years – your face changes.’

In October she has another immigration hearing and is also scheduled to give a deposition in the pending defamation lawsuit by Rachel DeLoache Williams, her former friend and Vanity Fair picture editor. Williams went to the police in 2017 claiming Anna had left her to foot a bill of £55,000 for an ill-fated trip to Morocco they went on. She then assisted in the sting operation that led to Anna’s arrest. Williams later gave evidence against her former friend in court, but Anna was found not guilty on the two counts.

Williams has claimed in her lawsuit she was falsely portrayed in Inventing Anna as being ‘unethical’, ‘snobbish’ and ‘greedy’ and the programme was an invasion of her privacy.

Alexander Rufus-Isaacs, representing Williams, said the lawsuit makes a strong case that his client’s character was intentionally misrepresented to tell a better story.

Surprisingly, Sorokin says she still hasn’t watched the series that cemented her infamy, except for the odd clip.

Sorokin may be a darling in some sections of New York society, but it’s striking how others want nothing to do with her.

‘A thoroughly awful, selfish, dishonest, narcissistic woman who conned a few rich people and got convicted. She lives for publicity,’ was one of the kinder comments when I asked people’s opinion.

Such insults initially seem like water off a duck’s back when I mention that not everyone has been won over, but then she becomes irritated. ‘Some people are still not satisfied that I was ever let out of jail,’ she huffs. ‘I was sentenced. I did my time. It’s disrespectful to the government and to the law because I didn’t make the rules. Do they want me to spend 25 [years] to life for this? Would that be better?

‘Whatever anybody may say, I’ve never had bad intentions. I never set out to defraud anybody – it just got out of control.

‘I never woke up and decided, “Let me f*** these people over – that would be fun”. I was young, and when you’re young you don’t have anything to lose.’

When Sorokin was in her 20s, she had a tech boyfriend called Hunter Lee Soik, who was also portrayed in Inventing Anna, and I ask if there’s anyone special in her life right now. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. No comment for now,’ she hints tantalisingly.

The terms of her house arrest mean she is now allowed to move within 75 miles of her residence and other requests can be considered. The Hamptons, she tells me, is somewhere she wants to visit.

‘If I wanted to go to the Hamptons, I can put in a request. I’d provide them [the immigration authorities] with the dates and where I would be staying.’

The Hamptons, playground of the rich and famous? It sounds the perfect place for the latest instalment of reinventing Anna.