A hapless drunk who helped himself to doughnuts from a looted Krispy Kreme shop was jailed for 16 months yesterday.
Serial offender Thomas Downey had been released from prison only hours before he was arrested with a £17 box of the snacks.
He was one of a string of looters jailed for stealing items worth less than £100 as judges continued to mete out tough justice, despite claims of excessive sentences.
Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, told Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think it’s important that the courts retain their objectivity, remain dispassionate and don’t get swept up in any sort of moral panic that might be existing elsewhere in civil society.
“We shouldn’t be finding ourselves in a situation where people are receiving wildly different sentences for offences that seem on the facts to be relatively similar. I mean that’s just not justice.”
The Liberal Democrat peer called on the Sentencing Council to issue guidelines on riot sentences as soon as possible.
But the council said rioting would not be discussed until early September, and there were no plans to issue any guidance.
This week, four-year sentences handed to two men who used Facebook to try to start violence sparked a fierce debate about appropriate punishments which split the Coalition parties.
David Cameron and senior Tories defended tough terms while Lib Dems warned it was dangerous to try to influence the courts.
Downey, 48, who has 233 previous convictions, walked out of Strangeways prison at 7.30pm last Tuesday with £6 in his pocket.
After buying tobacco and attending a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, he downed a bottle of sherry and stumbled into the doughnut shop in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, which had been damaged during the riots.
Staff alerted police and 20 riot officers arrived to arrest him. Downey admitted burglary and breach of an Asbo which banned him from entering the city centre.
His lawyer, Zoe Nield, said he was drunk and “helped himself” because he was hungry.
Also at Manchester Crown Court, Conrad McGrath, 21, an English undergraduate at Aberystwyth University, was jailed for 16 months for looting alcohol from a Tesco Express store in the city - despite being told by his mother to avoid the violence.
And 25-year-old David Swarbrick was jailed for two years for stealing £25 worth of Oil of Olay from a budget store.
Swarbrick admitted burglary, having told police: “No big deal, it’s only a bit of moisturiser.” - Daily Mail