Was a U.K. man sentenced to over two years behind bars for "waving an English flag"? No, that's not true: The man pleaded guilty to religiously aggravated harassment, having an article with intent to destroy or damage property and obstructing or resisting a constable. Social media posts omitted information about the actual charges in this case, which had nothing to do with an act of carrying or waving the flag.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on August 23, 2024. It said:
Two years in prison for waving an English flag.
An eighteen-year-old, James Martin, has been sentenced to a staggering two years and two months in prison, all for the audacity to march outside an Islamic centre in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, brandishing an England flag.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue August 27 15:18:01 2024 UTC)
The incident referred to on social media occurred on August 8, 2024, just after 10 p.m. local time, as people gathered to pray inside the Islamic Center on Roscoe Street (archived here) in Scarborough, a seaside town in North Yorkshire County, England.
According to a police statement on Facebook on August 23, 2024, a local resident named James Martin was "shouting and swearing" outside the venue. When he was detained, firelighters were discovered in his pocket.
The police statement reads:
He was taken to custody, and charged with racially/religiously aggravated harassment, having an article with intent to destroy/damage property, and obstructing/resisting a constable in the execution of their duty.
Two weeks later, Martin pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to 26 months in jail.
As cited by the BBC (archived here), York Crown Court's Judge Sean Morris said that had a fire been started, the "consequences could have been fatal" and, therefore, "this calls for an immediate prison sentence."
While the judge added that Martin "disgraced" the flag, the remark referred to the overall context of the scene, not to exclusively the fact that the man carried it.
A series of violent incidents took place in the U.K. in the aftermath of the mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed event in Southport on July 29, 2024, that left three children dead (archived here).
The unrest was fueled (archived here) by a massive spread of false statements about the attack and the attacker on social media.
On August 9, 2024, the North Yorkshire Police Department published its Chief Constable Tim Forber's video address on X. He specifically brought up the connection between the unrest and false viral posts:
Much of that is false misinformation. Please, think about what you're reading on social media and, please, please, please, don't react to it.
Yet, some of those false narratives were elevated by well-known public figures. For example, on August 24, 2024, Elon Musk reposted (a screenshot is here and an archived Google search across his account on X is here) a broader variation of the claim that is the focus of this fact check, and that version equally misled about the nature of the charges in Martin's case.
Lead Stories contacted York Crown Court and North Yorkshire police for additional comments but didn't receive an immediate response. If we get it, this story will be updated as appropriate.
