Two mums with 11 kids between them jailed after rampaging through streets during rioting

TWO mums with 11 children between them have been locked up after they rampaged through the streets during rioting.

Donna Conniff, 40, and Lisa Bishop, 38, were sentenced separately for their parts in disorder across the UK.

Mother-of-six Conniff was jailed for two years after a judge branded her behaviour “truly disgraceful”.

She had lobbed a brick at a police van and another at riot cops as a mob ran amok in Hartlepool, County Durham, on July 31.

The mother, identified later from CCTV, was also spotted handing a brick to a child and encouraging him to do the same.

Judge Francis Laird KC said she was one of 200 who had gathered in the town before violence erupted. They hurled bottles, bricks, beer cans and other items at police — injuring several officers — while a police car was set on fire, below.

The judge said: “In the course of disorder, properties were targeted, windows were broken, shops and vehicles were damaged.

“Your behaviour and the behaviour of others around you was truly disgraceful.” Conniff, from Hartlepool, had admitted violent disorder at a previous hearing.

She shouted “love you” to her family as she was led from the dock at Teesside crown court.

Meanwhile Bishop, who has five children, was sentenced to 26 months in prison after she targeted a hotel housing asylum seekers in Bristol on August 3.

She was part of a “terrifying” mob that gathered outside the city’s Mercure — leaving those trapped inside fearing for their lives.

A cop cycle team — equipped with nothing more than their police vests and bike helmets — were deployed to the hotel, Bristol crown court was told.

But the unit was soon overwhelmed as protesters and counter-protesters clashed.

Bishop and others grew “increasingly agitated and aggressive” in the stand-off.

Judge Martin Picton told her: “You were at the forefront, gesturing and shouting at the police as you drank more alcohol.

“There was genuine fear among those police officers.”

The court heard the cost to the city of the protest stands at “£385,000 and growing”.

Bishop, of Bristol, pleaded guilty to violent disorder after being identified from police body-cam footage — and was said to have been left “disgusted and ashamed at her behaviour”.

And a mum who took her one-year-old son to a riot in a pram was yesterday warned she faces jail.

Nevey Smith, 21, of Oldham, admitted violent disorder after joining a mob outside a hotel in Manchester on July 31.

Judge Patrick Field KC said that a custodial sentence will be an option when she returns to Manchester crown court for sentencing on September 23.