Prince's Trust winner admits part in street riots

A Prince's Trust award winner honoured for turning his life around was today behind bars for taking part in this summer's notorious street riots.

Cassidy Etiemble had been freed from prison just two weeks earlier for burgling an office when violence that caused chaos in towns and cities across the country spread to the West Midlands.

The 21-year-old was brought to justice after he was recognised in photographs published in the Express & Star.

Hooded Etiemble was pictured screaming and kicking out towards a police officer in Wolverhampton, moments before a jewellers shop was wrecked and looted.

He was also seen sprinting away as an officer was being helped from his knees in a shop doorway, and was later again captured on CCTV among looters rampaging through the wrecked store.

Rioters had torn open the metal shutters and smashed the front windows of the premises and other shops in the street during the shameful scenes on August 8. The marauding mob was then seen clambering inside, smashing display cabinets and stealing goods. At Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday, Etiemble pleaded guilty to affray and burgling E.V. Beckett's jewellers in Queen Street on the same day.

The 40-year-old business suffered £30,000 damage and thefts in the disorder.

Etiemble also admitted unlawful violence towards another during unrest in the Lichfield Street area of the city, and entering Beckett's as a trespasser during the riot.

It was revealed that Etiemble, who was arrested on August 14 at his home in Chervil Rise, Heath Town, had been released from an eight-week prison sentence a fortnight before the riots. He was remanded in custody yesterday and will be sentenced on October 20. Miss Sarah Hurd, defending, said: "He is very well known by the courts but not for anything quite as serious as this."

Etiemble was presented with a Prince's Trust award at Molineux in February 2009 after completing a course aimed at confronting anti-social behaviour.

Wolves fan Etiemble was serving a three-year football ban for hooliganism at the time, during which a rival fan had reportedly been beaten up. He said after getting the award: "I was a waster. At college I had no willpower and just gave up. I had a bad binge-drinking habit. Now I feel great."

Today the Metropolitan Police revealed that almost 3,000 people had been arrested in connection with the riots. The trouble began after Mark Duggan, 29, was shot dead by police on August 4 in Tottenham.