English Defence League member jailed for football fight

A prominent member of the English Defence League has been jailed for nine months for taking part in a pre-arranged “pitched battle” between football hooligans.
Joel Titus, 19, took part in the bloody brawl between Brentford and Leyton Orient supporters outside Liverpool Street station in central London in May last year.

The A-level student was captured on CCTV hurling objects at rivals and fighting over a wooden pole with another thug.

Titus had previously been cautioned for battery after punching a journalist at a right-wing demonstration against the “Islamification of Europe” in December 2009, the Old Bailey heard.

Earlier this year he was found guilty of threatening behaviour after swearing at a police officer who tried to break up a fight.

He is reported to be a youth organiser for the EDL and has appeared on the BBC Newsnight programme talking about his role in protests.

Titus, of North View, Pinner, north-west London, appeared in court alongside five other men, all of whom admitted a charge of affray at earlier hearings.

Dean Wells, 22, of Isleworth, west London, was jailed for 12 months while David Mitchell, 19, of Littlehampton, West Sussex, was given seven months and Andrew Hudson, 26, of Hornchurch, Essex, received an eight-month sentence.

Steven Donovan, 20, of Hayes, Middlesex, and Thomas Armstrong, 24, of Woodford Green, Essex, were each given suspended six-month sentences.

Judge Timothy Pontius said the men had taken part in a “disgraceful display of violence” that terrified ordinary people using a busy railway station and put them at risk of harm from bottles thrown across the street.

He said the “pitched battle” must have been a “frightening spectacle” that required a “firm deterrent message” from the court.

London 24