Stacey Vint pushed a flaming wheelie bin towards police during the August 2024 disorder in Middlesbrough and was later jailed for 20 months for violent disorder. The 34-year-old was among the first rioters to be sentenced on Teesside after the Southport attack.
Vint said she had been awake for several days, drinking and taking drugs, when she got caught up in the crowd on her way to the shops. She said: “Within seconds everything turned to madness,” and “The atmosphere just took over me.”
Her account now sits alongside a very different meeting. After her release from prison, Vint took part in a restorative justice process with Restorative Cleveland, bringing her face to face with Satti Collins for the first time in more than 25 years. Collins recognised her as a child she had once taught after seeing her face on the front of a newspaper, and said: “I just wanted to know why she did that. I wanted to find her, but I didn't know how.”
The exchange mattered because it went beyond the sentence. Vint had spoken earlier about addiction, homelessness and instability before the disorder, saying she had lost custody of her children and had been moving between “sesh houses”. She also said, “I didn't see a future for myself,” and later added: “It was just completely unstoppable by then and I drank and took drugs to block everything out.”
What makes the story land now is that the meeting did not end with a single apology and a handshake. Since then, Vint and Collins have spoken at schools, addressed representatives from 18 schools at a conference and delivered sessions to police officers. They recently appeared together at a community event organised by the Amal Project.
Collins said Vint had been “a bit lippy” as a pupil but added, “as teachers we were very fond of you.” She later described Vint as “brave and honest” and said she had worked hard to turn her life around, adding that she is “really making a difference in sharing her story with others.” Vint said: “People were frightened in their homes. Cars smashed up. Windows boarded. I had never thought about how my actions affected anyone else.” She added, “I am not racist, far from it. But I was still part of something I should not have been,” and said, “I want to make things right.”
The close of the case is not the jail term alone. It is that a woman who helped fuel a night of violence in Middlesbrough is now talking in classrooms and police training sessions about how quickly disorder can consume a life, and about the damage left behind when it does.
