Of course we will never know, but I think if it wasn't for the level of backlash, we may have seen a different outcome to be honest. What started out as witch-hunt on the police officers became quite a long and awkward silence.
The two tier thing is a very long and complicated matter which I have no doubt could fill another hundred pages on this forum. One of the biggest arguments for this particular case was that the rioters (and people saying naughty words online) were being expedited to prison, whilst this case has taken six months to come to a head. That might be normal process usually, but I think it is fair to say the latter incident and the handling of it was pouring petrol on the fire of the situation at the time. It was certainly of mass public interest and being used an excuse for people to misbehave.
We might not hear the end of this anyway, as any sentencing will probably be quite low level given the charge appears to be ABH they are running with. Looks like there's a few high profile court cases within a few days coming up in January, that all coincides with Trump entering the White House as well. Buzzing!