Everything that happened at today's hearing at Northampton Crown Court as Tyler Kay was sentenced for inciting racial hatred on X

Kay, 26, had posted a series of inflammatory tweets on X, including inciting people to burn down asylum hotels and encouraging them to attend a planned protest at an immigration solicitor in Kettering Road.

He indicated he was planning on attending the far-right event – which eventually came to nothing – but hours before it was due to start, Northamptonshire Police officers went to his home in Ellfield Court to arrest him.

He was questioned on suspicion of inciting racial hatred, admitted the offence before magistrates yesterday (Thursday, August 8) and was in front of a crown court judge this afternoon to be sentenced.

It’s an astonishingly rapid progression through a court system that in normal times has been beset by years-long delays, and it’s a result of Home Secretary Yvette Cooper promising those involved with rioting that has gripped the country would be dealt with swiftly as a deterrent to others thinking of getting involved.

The press bench at Northampton Crown Court was unusually busy, with reporters from the Press Association, Daily Mail, television news and news agencies sitting alongside local journalists.

The case was delayed as a trial was taking place in Court Four – the largest courtroom in the Lady’s Lane building, presided over by resident judge Her Honour Judge Adrienne Lucking.

And after an uncomfortable few hours in the court cells, Judge Lucking worked through her lunch hour to ensure Kay was swiftly locked-up by teatime.

Kay had not shown much hint on social media of having extreme right wing views before the past couple of years. His extreme opinions seemed to have grown recently, emboldened by a climate of chaos on social media.

He entered the courtroom looking like a man who’d spent two nights in custody – unshaven, in a creased red t-shirt sporting a black eye and a cut nose, flanked by a female dock officer. He wore ripped jeans and Nike trainers. There was nobody in the public gallery to support him.

He briefly looked over at the packed press gallery as he arrived but then began to look around the room to avoid the gaze of reporters. He then moved seats which meant he could hide his face from the press bench.

Mitigating barrister Will Forber-Heyward had to pass a handwritten basis of plea to the judge because the case had progressed so quickly that there had been no time to upload the document.

Kay had to give evidence from the witness box because the prosecution did not accept that he hadn’t intended to stir up racial hatred. This is unusual in a sentencing hearing.

From the box, Kay confidently said that he didn’t own a balaclava or gloves and that he had no intention of going to any riot.

He spent much of his hour on his feet painting himself as a free speech warrior and claiming he’s not an attempt to incite hatred.

He claimed he had just copied trending hashtags and added them to the tweet, although all of them were incendiary and connected to the ongoing unrest.

"I don’t agree with hotels being set on fire with any people in them,” he said, claiming he’d posted tweets because they were ‘relevant to his audience on Twitter,’ many of whom are local to Northampton.

"The post was not written by me, I just copied it as a political thing.”

He denied having seen much news about the riots.

Kay denied thinking about the consequences of what he was writing and said when he wrote ‘Let’s Go!!!’ above a post about the Northampton protest, he didn’t mean that he would go.

He attempted to persuade the judge that he had little wider knowledge of the context of his posts but she rejected that, saying he was trying to portray himself as ‘naive’.

Kay’s own barrister described him as ‘immature’ and said he had grown up in care. He said he would lose his council house as a result of a prison sentence.

He looked up to the sky as he was sentenced to 38 months in jail, with Her Honour Judge Adrienne Lucking saying: “In light of the timing and nature of the postings you clearly intended to incite serious violence.

"The overall tone of the posts identified clearly reveals your fundamentally racist mindset.

"You have tried ineffectually to provide alternative explanations for your inflammatory posts.”