As racist riots disfigure town and cities across the UK, the man who first went online broadcasting to thousands and calling for riots, is desperately backtracking as he tries to avoid prosecution and jail.

It was Tommy Robinson’s right hand man and former bodyguard Danny Tommo (real name Daniel Thomas) who, last Monday just after the Southport murders, went online broadcasting to tens of thousands, screaming that “Every city has to go up”; a call to action that is now having dreadful consequences in communities around the country.

Perhaps someone has pointed out to him that two sentences of four years were handed out after the 2011 riots to individuals promoting the riots on Facebook. And they were underage.

Anyway, Tommo’s original YouTube video has now been taken down ‘by the uploader’. But he shouldn’t relax too quickly – we have a copy safely archived and it will of course be available to the investigating authorities, should they need it.

BBC Verify tried to establish on Friday where the first call for riot had come from. They concluded that it was an anonymous Twitter account in the name of ‘Lord Simon’ whom they described as “an influencer associated with Yaxley-Lennon” (ie Tommy Robinson).

Had they looked a little closer they would perhaps have noticed that the video in question, uploaded to that account, was Danny Tommo’s original YouTube video. Yes, it was definitely he who first called for riots.

Danny Tommo’s call for riots, as it appeared on the Lord Simon Twitter account

And had the BBC examined the account even more carefully, they might have concluded that it bears all the hallmarks of being operated by or in co-operation with Danny Tommo himself. It also carried, for instance, his live streams from the Downing St disturbances on Wednesday evening.  Now, Tommo is facing up to the prospect of arrest and jail time and he’s getting worried, so he’s backing off his earlier calls to action. His latest video claims that:

“The press are coming after me with sinister allegations about me instigating riots which is absolutely unfounded and not true”.

We look forward to seeing what a jury makes of that.

He also claims that all he ever did at the Downing St protest on Wednesday – which ended up with serious disorder – was make it clear that “we were not there to burn, not there to fight anyone, we were not there to attack anyone”.  Honest…

And, he added for the benefit of his detractors, the only reason he legged it when trouble kicked off was because his comrades told him it was his duty not to get arrested.

Lord Simon, his apparent alter ego, is also backtracking. On Friday night he posted that:

“The fires have been lit in Sunderland. Lads, this is not what it’s about. Protest and show your voices. A show of strength to show we are still here. Don’t destroy your towns and property”.

But it’s too late for that. The original Danny Tommo video, broadcast to his 68,000 You Tube followers and thousands more on Twitter, and now being put into action by racist gangs across the country, was unequivocal:

 “Every city has to go up.

“Get prepared. Be ready. We have to.

“It has to go off in different cities.

“We have to show them we’ve had enough…”

And, as towns and cities across the country are ‘going up’ it cannot be too soon before this lowlife is called to account.

But there is one lingering irony in the story of Danny Tommo, the riot inciter-in-chief. On many of his videos and posts he bashes on about the need for emergency legislation to curb knife crime.

This, however, is just a touch rich coming from a man who in 2016 was jailed for two years for attempted kidnap, using knives, in a dispute over stolen drugs.