Jail for binman who targeted shop in Wolverhampton riots

A binman who tried to break in to a shop that was later ransacked by looters during the Wolverhampton riots was jailed for two years today.

Convicted football hooligan Mark Hodgetts was caught on CCTV during the unrest that swept the city centre on August 9.

Prosecutor Mr David Lees told Wolverhampton Crown Court: "There was widespread disorder in the city and a number of stores in Queen Street were damaged and broken into. Large amounts of property was stolen."

One of these was the Digitech Masters shop, where the cost of damage and goods taken totalled £60,000.

Mr Lees continued: "There was a large amount of CCTV coverage and stills of what was going on that featured Hodgetts." The 23-year-old was away when police visited his home but gave himself up three days after the unrest.

Mr Lees said: "He was present among the crowds and the still shows that he was trying to make entry into Digitech Masters.

"After his arrest he told police that he had been walking through Wolverhampton on his way to see his girlfriend. He said he saw crowds congregating outside Digitech but left before the premises were broken into.

"CCTV shows that he was part of the crowd in the city centre for over 15 minutes."

Hodgetts, from Coleman Street, Whitmore Reans, who worked for the city council as a refuse collector, pleaded guilty to attempted burglary.

Hodgetts, who has 17 middle names featuring the names of players in Wolves' promotion-winning team from the year he was born, also has a string of previous convictions including public order crimes and was banned from attending Wolves matches for three years in August 2008 for hooliganism.

In 2007 he was part of mob violence involving 20 youths in Wolverhampton city centre.

Jailing him, Judge John Warner told him: "Your record shows you had been involved in serious disorder in Wolverhampton before this incident. You had a choice. You could have walked away but you chose to get involved."