Sheffield man charged after weekend of violence across South Yorkshire sobs in court

A 30-year-old man sobbed in court as he became the first person to appear before magistrates following disorder in South Yorkshire over the weekend.

Curtis Coulson, 30, wiped away tears with a tissue throughout his 20 minute-long appearance at Sheffield Magistrates Court on Monday.

He denied one charge of affray and was told he will go on trial at the same court on 20 September. The charge relates to an incident which was caught on CCTV and shown to District Judge James Gould.

Coulson, of Water Slacks Close in Sheffield, is alleged to have approached a woman with a stick, which had come from a broken placard, outside Sheffield City Hall, and waved it in front of her in a threatening manner while masked.

Flanked by one security guard, the defendant became even more upset in the glass-fronted dock when Judge Gould refused him bail and remanded him in custody.

Dressed in a zipped-up black water-proof jacket, he called out to his mother, who was in court, as he was led from court.

He will next appear for a hearing on 12 August.

An anti-immigration protest was planned for Sheffield City Hall on Sunday as part of a series around England, many of which turned violent.

But social media appeared to show that only a handful of protesters turned up in the city centre where they were met by a much larger anti-fascist demonstration.

Meanwhile, around 750 people went to a hotel housing asylum seekers in Rotherham - where riots left 12 police officers injured.

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