Eric Pickles: Strong sentences for rioters necessary

Eric Pickles, communities and local government secretary, tells the Today programme that strong sentences are necessary:

"We need to understand that people for a while thought that this was a crime without consequence.

"We cannot have people being frightened in their beds, frightened in their own homes, for their public safety.

"That's why these kind of exemplary sentences are necessary and I think the public would be rightly alarmed if that incitement to riot got off with just a slap on the wrist."

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