'Kill the Bill' rioter who spat at and attacked police jailed for nearly six years
Watch: Rioter jailed for five years and 10 months after spitting at police
A woman who spat at police and hit officers with a wooden stick has been jailed for five years and 10 months.
Francesca Horn, 25, was captured on CCTV and police body cameras kicking out at officers during a Kill the Bill protest in Bristol in March last year.
She was sentenced on Friday after being convicted of riot following a trial in April at Bristol Crown Court.
Horn, of Montpelier in Bristol, struck officers with a wooden stick, kicked their shields and spat at them in a riot outside Bridewell Police Station on 21 March, 2021.
She had admitted a charge of violent disorder but denied riot.
There were Kill the Bill protests nationwide against the introduction of the controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which was given royal assent earlier this year.
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Footage gathered by police showed Horn taking hold of a police shield and using it to ram officers. Horn was also seen ripping off the wing mirror of a police van.
Judge James Patrick said her offending had a “devastating effect” and told her she was “clearly delighting in what you were doing”.
He said: “You spat at officers during a pandemic. You attacked police lines, kicking officers and rocked a police van.
"You used a number of weapons and you tore a wing mirror off a van and you threw two shields at officers.”
Senior Investigating Officer Supt James Riccio, from Avon and Somerset Police, said: “The prison sentence given by the court today reflects the gratuitous and corrosive offending Horn carried out on that night.
“She spat at officers, with one of them describing at the trial how she’d never been spat at before, and given the COVID-19 pandemic was ongoing, it left her feeling worried and upset. This is wholly unacceptable behaviour."
Police said a total of 18 people have now been jailed as part of their investigation into the riot, receiving a combined prison sentence of 71 years and three months.