'What on earth brought on this?': Mum-of-two loses job following 'appalling and deplorable' scenes

A mother lost her job after launching a volley of ‘deeply hurtful and racist language’.

Lindsay Keenan, 50, from Middleton, was heard shouting ‘f*** off back to your own country’ during the large scale disorder in Manchester city centre last month. A far-right demonstration was held in Piccadilly Gardens, with protestors being met by counter protestors.

Manchester Crown Court heard a witness present at the incident saw and heard mum-of-two Keenan launch the racist abuse. He later went home and watched footage on TikTok from the disorder.

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“He says he saw what he believed to be the same person using similar abuse towards two Asian females,” prosecutor Duncan Wilcock said. The man then alerted police to the footage. Keenan was identified and was arrested.

She told police: “Well what about the other woman, has she been arrested too?” Keenan, of Glen Grove, Middleton, pleaded guilty to racially aggravated harassment, an offence which carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison.

Keenan has since lost her job and has her good character, after previously being unknown to the courts. “After 50 years of blameless behaviour, you find yourself sitting in the dock of a crown court, faced with a potential custodial sentence,” Judge Patrick Field KC told her.

“I expect that at some point you have asked yourself, ‘what on earth brought on this?’ I will tell you what brought you to it immediately. That was the fact that on August 3 this year, you committed an offence of racially aggravated disorderly behaviour.

“It was an ugly and intimidating incident. Your behaviour was appalling and deplorable.

“I suspect that if in