The Court of Appeal may be busy, according to critics who believe the sentences given to people involved in the recent riots are too severe.

Two men got four-year prison sentences after they were found guilty of trying to organise public disorder in Northwich and Warrington. Another man got 18 months for having a stolen TV in his car. One woman was jailed for six months for stealing a £3.50 case of water and another was jailed for five months for receiving a pair of shorts. When sentencing, one judge said the aim was to provide a deterrent to others.

Judge Andrew Gilbart QC of Manchester Crown Court said: "I have no doubt at all that the principal purpose is that the courts should show that outbursts of criminal behaviour like this will be and must be met with sentences longer than they would be if the offences had been committed in isolation. For those reasons I consider that the sentencing guidelines for specific offences are of much less weight in the context of the current case, and can properly be departed from."

The Prime Minister David Cameron said: "It's up to the courts to make decisions about sentencing, but they've decided to send a tough message and it's very good that the courts feel able to do that."

Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake disagreed, telling the BBC that had these crimes been committed before the riots the sentences would have been less, adding that sentencing "should be about restorative justice [and] not about retribution".

But Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said: "We need to understand that people for a while thought that this was a crime without consequence – we cannot have people being frightened in their beds, frightened in their own homes for their public safety. That is why these kind of exemplary sentences are necessary. I think people would be rightly alarmed if that incitement to riot got off with just a slap on the wrist."

And Conservative MP Margot James said of the four-year sentences: "I think the young men involved were inciting a riot, trying to organise the sort of mayhem that we saw on the streets eight nights ago in Salford, which would have put lives at risk and at the very least they distracted the police from trying to deal with that crisis and put a lot of fear into people."

But Labour's Paul Flynn said: "How can this make sense? How does it compare with other crimes? What will it do to prison numbers? This is not government. It's a series of wild panic measures seeking to claw back popularity."

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