A suspended Labour councillor who said far-right protesters should have their throats slit has been found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder.
Ricky Jones, 58, drew his finger across his throat and called demonstrators "disgusting Nazi fascists" at an anti-racism protest in east London last August following the Southport murders.
Jones, a borough councillor in Dartford, Kent, from 2019, said he felt it was his "duty" to attend the protest in Walthamstow, despite being warned by his party to stay away. He was suspended the day after the incident.
Jones, of Dartford, who denied one count of encouraging violent disorder, told police he was "sorry" he made the comments "in the heat of the moment", and had not intended for them to be "taken literally", the court had earlier heard.
On Friday, jurors found Jones not guilty after just half an hour of deliberations. The suspended councillor was seen mouthing "thank you" at the jurors after the verdict was handed down.
Former Home Secretary and Tory leadership candidate James Cleverly called the jury's verdict clearing Jones "perverse", writing on X that "decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system".
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the verdict was "another outrageous example of two-tier justice".
His statement was echoed by former Reform chairman Zia Yusuf, who said the "two-tier justice in this country is out of control" as Jones was cleared "while Lucy Connolly gets 31 months in jail".
Connolly pleaded guilty - meaning she did not face trial - last year to a charge of inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing "threatening or abusive" written material on X during the Southport riots.
A video of Jones speaking to cheering protesters went viral on social media after the demonstration, which had been organised in response to plans for a far-right march outside nearby Waltham Forest Immigration Bureau, jurors at Snaresbrook Crown Court were told.
It followed the nationwide violent disorder that occurred last summer after the Southport murders when Axel Rudakubana killed three girls and attempted to murder eight others at a summer holiday Taylor Swift-themed event.
Jones, who was also employed as a full-time official for the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) union at the time, was arrested a day after the protest and questioned by police in Brixton.
Jones said during his trial that his comment about cutting throats did not refer to far-right protesters involved in the riots at the time, but to people who had reportedly left National Front stickers on a train with razor blades hidden behind them.
Before he made the comment, footage shows Jones telling the crowd: "You've got women and children using these trains during the summer holidays. They don't give a shit about who they hurt."
Prosecutor Ben Holt said during the trial that Jones used "inflammatory, rabble-rousing language in the throng of a crowd that we will hear described as a tinderbox".
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He told the court that Jones gave his speech, which was amplified through a microphone and speakers, "in a setting where violence could readily have been anticipated".
Jones, who said he was on the left of the Labour Party, told jurors that he was "appalled" by political violence, adding that the riots left him feeling "upset" and "angry".
"I've always believed the best way to make people realise who you are and what you are is to do it peacefully," he said.
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