The women who took to the front line of violent rioting

When unrest erupted around the country, there was something striking about images of conflict – it wasn’t just men

In footage of the riots that broke out in Hartlepool, County Durham at the end of last month, most of the crowd are angry young men charging at a line of police officers, many of them with their faces covered by balaclavas. But in one particular clip from the evening of 31 July [seen above], when disorder broke out on Murray Street near the town centre, one figure stands out: a woman in a black T-shirt and sunglasses. She was caught on camera throwing a brick at a line of police. 
This woman is now known to be Donna Conniff, a 40-year-old mother of six who was sentenced this week to two years in prison for violent disorder at Teesside Crown Court. 
Conniff was spotted on CCTV and identified via a media appeal. She said she had come across the riots “by chance.” Martin Scarborough, her lawyer, said she was “genuinely remorseful” and “can’t believe she’s acted in the way that she has.”
Yet Conniff is far from the only woman connected with the violence and unrest that flared up across Britain in late July and early August. Triggered by a knife attack that killed three children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July in Southport, Merseyside, the rioting spread across the country in the days that followed. More than 1,000 people have been arrested for their involvement so far – and a number of them are women.
In nearby Middlesbrough, 34-year-old Stacey Vint was caught on video pushing a burning bin into a row of police officers. She was jailed for 20 months. In another case, in Sunderland, a middle-aged woman is alleged to have been the instigator of unrest. Video clips of 43-year-old Leanne Hodgson, wearing distinctive pink shorts and pushing an industrial bin at a line of police in the city centre quickly went viral. Some speculated she was “one of the first to turn up”. Newcastle Crown Court heard that Hodgson had attempted to buy a balaclava earlier in the day. She was jailed for two and a half years.
Meanwhile, a girl aged just 13 became the youngest female rioter to be convicted in connection with the unrest. She had participated in an anti-immigration demonstration outside a hotel housing migrants in Aldershot, Hampshire, and held her mother’s hand in court as she admitted to violent disorder.
Across the riots, women constituted a perhaps surprisingly significant presence. In 2011, the last time Britain’s streets were racked by tumult on a similar scale, about 10 per cent of those arrested were female, according to government statistics. There is not yet data to show whether the corresponding figure was higher this summer, but experts suggest there has been an increase in women participating directly and perpetrating violence. 
“The general understanding is that there are differences between men and women and participation in violence,” says Matthew Williams, a professor of criminology at Cardiff University and author of the Science of Hate. “You tend to find women as spectators more than violent perpetrators. They tend to sit on the sidelines in support of the violence of their male counterparts.” 
While they are often “quite vocal in support of the violence”, he adds, they rarely “get involved with throwing projectiles or being violent towards police” during instances of unrest. This time round, for whatever reason, that has changed. “What we have seen in the protests recently is more violent participation,” Williams says.
That women are typically more likely to be spectators than perpetrators is a claim backed up by Tim Newburn, a professor of criminology and social policy at the London School of Economics. But overall, the number of women involved in the riots this year does not differ significantly from the unrest seen in 2011, he says. “I think you will find that in riots in recent times, a smallish proportion of those have been women. The figures we have from 2011 are not unusual – perhaps one in 10 women. They have often gone along with friends or partners.”
That was the case in London this July, where Kelly Wildego, a 41-year-old mother, was handed a four-month suspended sentence for assaulting an emergency worker. During a demonstration in Whitehall, Wildego shouted expletives and rushed at police officers. Joseph Lord, her lawyer, said Wildego got herself arrested to be with her husband, who had already been detained by police. She was given a suspended sentence as she is a full-time carer for her son.
For several of the accused, rioting was a family affair. A mother and daughter sobbed in the dock in Teesside Magistrates Court as they appeared together earlier this week, charged with violent disorder. Grandmother Amanda Walton, 52, is accused of throwing a stone at a building and damaging a car wing mirror, and her daughter Megan Davison, 24, a mother of two, of jumping on the roof of a parked car. Neither entered a plea. They were remanded in custody ahead of a court appearance later this month. 
Davison’s 23-year-old partner also appeared in court, charged with violent disorder and arson with intent. He did not enter pleas. 
In a few cases, some rioters even attended with their children – 21-year-old Nevey Smith, from Oldham, Manchester, took her one-year-old son to a riot in his pushchair. She admitted violent disorder after being filmed throwing a liquid at police officers, and has been warned she could face a custodial sentence.
Trying to unpick why women, in particular, riot is as complicated and multifaceted as it for the men who took to the streets. It may be an easy defence to argue you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Newburn says that many rioters are “out on the streets without any real intention of getting involved”, before eventually being sucked in. That has, in some instances, been the case in 2024 as it has for decades before.
“They may get caught up, but it’s not their original intention – especially women,” he says. “That’s typical of rioting… You see a range of people, some who are intent on violence, who tend to be a minority, and then there are those who are varied in their intent and motivations, many of whom are just spectators. My sense would be – and it’s only a sense – is that oftentimes there are a higher proportion of women in the spectator bit of the crowd.” 
When the dust has settled, there will be questions that need to be answered on why the role played by women appears to have shifted somewhat. But in the absence of hard data, Williams suggests two factors may have been at play, the first being “the nature of the Southport attack… the targeting of young girls and mothers [by association.]” However, this was quickly eclipsed by a broader narrative on immigration. “That flashpoint – the instigating incident – seemed to be quite quickly overtaken,” he says.
The second is social media. When rioters took to the streets of London in 2011, albeit in very different circumstances, social media platforms such as X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram existed but were still in their infancy. A little over a decade on, they were the key driving force in how disinformation about the Southport attacker spread and played a major role in inciting thousands of Britons to riot. 
“The proliferation of disinformation on social media, particularly X/Twitter and Telegram [an encrypted instant messaging service] would have seen hate spread far more rapidly,” says Williams. “You can extrapolate from that it would have got more people involved, including women. Online communications were markedly different from 2011, simply because this technology wasn’t available.”
The false rumour that is widely held to have sparked the violence is that the alleged Southport attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK on a small boat. The blame has been largely pinned on a number of far-right agitators, including Tommy Robinson, and other commentators but women, too, played a significant role in the dissemination of the claim and other falsehoods. Britain First co-leader Ashlea Simon has been criticised for sharing a fake article supposedly written by The Telegraph which alleged Prime Minister Keir Starmer was building “detainment camps” on the Falklands Islands for rioters. The faked image was later shared – and then deleted – by X owner Elon Musk. 
In fact, a number of those who were instrumental in spreading fake news and adding fuel to the fire were women. “I don’t think there’s a gender disparity there,” says Mike Rowe, a professor of social sciences at Northumbria University who specialises in researching policing. “In a lot of what we have seen [online], people have become involved in the mistaken belief that they are trying to protect children and protect communities. One needs to be very clear that the rumours and racist elements of that discourse are very worrying, but I wonder perhaps if women are more likely to engage.”
Bernadette Spofforth, 55, a successful businesswoman from Chester, is accused of being one of the first to post a false accusation about the alleged attacker’s identity on X. She has said retweeting the claim was “a mistake” which has since “destroyed” her. Meanwhile, one of the most high-profile convictions of the riots was that of Julie Sweeney, a “keyboard warrior” from Cheshire, who was sentenced to 15 months in prison for a comment on Facebook which said: “Blow the mosque up with the adults in it.”
Jailing her, the judge told Sweeney that “even people like you need to go to prison”. Those who riot or have fanned the flames of violence, whoever they are, it seems, will feel the full force of the law.