A UNIVERSITY professor says he supports tough sentences for rioters after a study showed that three quarters of suspects had previous convictions.

A year ago Britain saw unprecedented scenes of violence and destruction sweep through Ealing and other major English cities between August 6 and 9 last year.

Professor Malcolm Davies, from the University of West London’s Ealing Law School, investigated the profile of rioters and how the courts dealt out punishment.

Although some sentences seem severe on paper for minor offences, he said it is important that punishment is considered in the context of the riots, not individual acts, which left residents old and young too frightened to leave their homes.

He said sentencing is ‘not easy’ for judges, but feels softer sentences with attention to rehabilitation are only so effective as so many rioters were reoffending.

“We have a system of rehabilitation which for many is more important than the protection of the public,” he said. "Some people in the riots wouldn’t have been in them if they had been locked up.

“They were many with previous convictions - they are clearly committed and lead a serious anti-social lifestyle.”

The criminologist, who joined the university in 1972 and has worked in the attorney general’s office in California, used data from the Ministry of Justice for rioters across the country.

He noted:

* 76 per cent in court before September 28 last year had a previous conviction or caution

* 89 per cent were men

* 27 per cent were as young as 10 to 17

* 26 per cent aged between 18 and 20 years old

* 41 per cent between 21 and 39

Ealing Police say only 40 of 200 people arrested in relation to the Ealing disorder were from the borough.

However, one key rioter, Sabaoon Hillaman, 24, of Ruislip Road, Greenford - who was handed a five and a half year jail sentence for setting cars ablaze and looting shops in Ealing Green - was already known to the courts.

At the time he was on bail after admitting his part in a lucrative car crash fraud scheme. This week he was sentenced for a further four years and 10 months for that offence.

Mr Davies hosted a lecture into causes of the riots at the university in June.