Thomas Birley: British man handed nine-year prison sentence for burning hotel in UK riots

A British man has been jailed for nine years for arson at a hotel housing asylum seekers during anti-Muslim riots, by far the longest sentence imposed over recent widespread violent disorder.

Thomas Birley, 27, pleaded guilty to arson with intent to endanger life after he stoked a fire in a bin by an entranceway to a hotel in Rotherham, northern England, on August 4.

Prosecutor Alisha Kaye said Birley added wood to an already-flaming industrial bin, which had been placed in front of a fire door of the hotel while staff and guests sheltered inside.

Birley, who had also pleaded guilty to violent disorder and possessing an offensive weapon, was sentenced on Friday at Sheffield Crown Court by Judge Jeremy Richardson, who said Birley’s actions were “suffused with racism from beginning to end”.

The hotel was targeted by about 400 people during days of rioting involving violence, arson and looting as well as racist attacks, which followed the killings of three young girls in the northern English town of Southport on July 29.

The attack was initially blamed on an Islamist migrant, false claims based on online misinformation.

An 18-year-old, Axel Rudakubana who was born in Cardiff, has been charged.

A protest in Southport the day after the killings turned violent and riots spread across the country in unrest not seen in Britain since 2011, when the fatal shooting of a Black man by police triggered several days of street violence.

Police and prosecutors have responded rapidly, with roughly 1300 people having been arrested and around 200 people jailed - one for as long as six years’ imprisonment for violent disorder.

Others have been charged for inciting racial or religious hatred online.