A pair of police-hating criminals who were jailed for their part in shocking riots which hit Nottingham two years ago today failed to convince top judges that they were too harshly punished.
Lance Lufti Francis, 26, and Callum Joseph Powell, 21, were part of a gang jailed for their part in a planned disturbance which included a firebomb attack on Canning Circus Police Station.
Francis, of no fixed address, got 14 years for riot, arson, perverting justice, blackmail, harassment and handling stolen goods, while Powell, of Jarrow Gardens, Top Valley, got five-and-a-half years for riot.
Today, Lady Justice Rafferty dismissed appeals by the two thugs, describing the horrific riot as a "planned and premeditated" attack, motivated by a hatred of the police.
Officers had been inside the station when it was attacked by a mob of missile-hurling criminals in August 2011. About nine petrol bombs were said to have been thrown by the gang, including one by Francis.
The judge said he had been "enthusiastic" and at "the vanguard" of the group's attack. He was a "persistent breaker of the law" who had to also be sentenced for separate offences including blackmail.
Powell, who had previous convictions for robbery and carrying a blade, could not be linked to any of the petrol bombs, but had shown a "strong animosity" to police and was happy to join in the attack.
"The impact in Nottingham of the rioting may have been less serious than elsewhere, but nonetheless was still serious," she said.
Their lawyers today argued that the sentences were too long, Powell's because it did not fit in with sentences imposed on other rioters, and Francis' because the total created by adding the blackmail term was excessive.
But rejecting the men's appeals, Lady Justice Rafferty, sitting today with Mr Justice Kenneth Parker and Judge William Davis QC, said their arguments were "entirely unmeritorious".
