Rioter gets five years for looting shop and attacks on police cars

A man who led an attack on an optician's store in the London riots - in which 20,000 pairs of glasses were stolen - was jailed for five years today.

Junior Saunders, 36, went on an orgy of looting and violence during widespread disorder in Hackney on Monday, August 8.

He led an attack on the Eyelondon store which destroyed the livelihood of owner Margaret Asare.
Saunders admitted six charges at Wood Green crown court related to the riots after police used CCTV evidence and a facial recognition expert to put him at the scene.

It is thought to be the first time that police have used a so-called "facial mapping" expert in a prosecution of this kind. Saunders was seen riding a bike in Mare Street on CCTV and then used a cycle lock to damage two police vehicles.
He was seen throwing items at police and then broke into an articulated lorry where he spent 15 minutes passing planks of wood to other suspects -which they used to smash the windows of buses packed with passengers.

After the Eyelondon raid he attacked Tesco in Morning Lane with a shovel, handing out property to others.

In police interviews he denied he was there but changed his plea to guilty when presented with evidence from a specialist in face recognition.
Saunders, of Hackney, admitted two counts of disorder, two counts of causing criminal damage and two of burglary.

The sentence is one of the longest handed out to criminals involved in the riots. DS Benton Perry, from Hackney's Operation Withern team, said: "Throughout the investigation Saunders continued to deny his involvement. After he was charged the investigation team continued gathering evidence with the use of facial recognition experts. When faced with this overwhelming evidence, Saunders changed his plea to guilty, resulting in this appropriately lengthy sentence."