FORMER Newstead Wood and St Olave's pupil Laura Johnson has been jailed for her role in last summer's riots.

Johnson, daughter of millionaire parents Robert, 56, and Lindsay, 55 was found guilty of burglary and handling stolen goods on August 8 last year.

Meanwhile News Shopper's reporter Rachel Conner has been closely following the case from the start. She gives her verdict on a "good girl gone wrong".

LAST summer's riots shocked and appalled the country. In the days and weeks that followed the courts were crowded with people who had looted and burned their way through the streets of London and other cities.

One was sentenced to six months for stealing a £3.50 bottle from Lidl. Two more are in prison for four years after posting messages on Facebook telling people to riot, even though no one turned up for the event and they did not leave their houses.

On Friday Laura Johnson, the intelligent and successful daughter of a millionaire, started a prison sentence for what the judge described as her "pivotal" role in "one of the most serious criminal enterprises which occurred during the civil disturbances".

The shockingly lenient sentence comes after witnesses told the court they had seen her laughing and joking in her car during the night in question. The judge told her she was jointly responsible for the group's actions, which included robbing other looters at knife point.

Despite being handed a two-year sentence she will spend just seven months in prison. Five months of her custodial sentence was spent in her £1m country farmhouse in Orpington - complete with tennis courts.

Not exactly the harsh reality afforded to most of those who took part in last summer's riots.

Laura Johnson's privileged background, which included attending one of the best schools in the country followed by a leading university, may be a far cry from that of most of those offenders, but it does not mean she should be treated any differently.

Her story is that of a "good girl gone wrong", lured from her parents' middle-class lifestyle by the exciting nature of London's gang culture.

But her fall from grace, dramatic as it was, is not mitigation for her actions.