21 year old Sam Lowe plead guilty to charges of inciting violent disorder and has been jailed for 3.3 years by a UK court. Apparently, Lowe sent messages to 160 people last year as they gathered in Nottingham city centre in August. He was prompting them to commit acts of violence with the messages.

Detective Rich Henson from the Nottinghamshire Police comments on the events and subsequent conviction of Lowe:

“Lowe broadcast his initial message to the 160 BlackBerry users he’d added to his contacts list and subsequently deleted it”

“Not only did we manage to gain access to Lowe’s BlackBerry Messenger messages, we were able to retrieve his deleted messages, which are also very difficult to recover due to rigorous security settings.”

Police caught onto Lowe after he texted the people involved encouraging them to rise up against the police:

“It is impossible to quantify the impact and effects of the messages he sent that night. It is clear, however, that this was an irresponsible and criminal act at a time when people were rising up against the police on a national scale.”

There has been over 140 arrests related to the riot and so far, there’s been almost 90 convictions.

Henson adds:

“Let this be a clear warning to those criminals out there who think they are safe using BlackBerrys to orchestrate or commit crime. There is no where to hide.”